


Four times Gon survived (and the one time he didn't)

by arienai



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, CW: Tserriednich generally, Co-starring: the Phantom Troupe, F/M, Kallufei, M/M, What Could Have Been, chimera ant arc narrator tells it like it is, gon freecss character treatise, implied leopika, still laying on the floor thinking about gonkill, what if Gon and Killua were on the Black Whale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:08:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 107,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23159050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arienai/pseuds/arienai
Summary: Under the light cast by the torches that ring the shattered tower in which Gon at last comes face-to-face with Pitou, Killua stands in his shadow.And speaks.What if, at the precipice of the most calamitous event of their young lives, Gon made a different choice? One that alters his and Killua's fates forever.1. Retribution:The other Ants learn to avoid Gon when Pitou takes him for his walks.2. Intimacy:"Hey Killua," Gon tells him as they watch the stars, "Let's go to the Dark Continent."If a simple change of scenery has done this much, a trip to uncharted territory should heal them both.3. Mercy:"Killua," says Gon as Killua turns to leave, "Thank you."4. Loss:Morel cradles something wrapped in Knuckle's jacket, something that seems much too small to be what it is until Gon sees Killua's shoes.5. Hope:Gon asks Killua if he would make a good fisherman.They plan to meet again on January 1st.Companion fic toFour times Killua died (and the one time he didn't).
Relationships: Gon Freecs/Killua Zoldyck
Comments: 86
Kudos: 93





	1. Retribution x and x Redemption

Gon does not say enough. He swallows the worst of his venom; it burns the same way his blood boils, on the way back down. Killua is only trying to be the voice of reason, just like Gon asked him to be. Yes, it is easier for Killua, and no, Gon doesn't want to listen, not _now_ , to tepid hesitation when the object of his rage is an armslength away, but he refrains from lashing out. Killua doesn't deserve it. 

In turn, Killua never lashes back.

Unchastized, uncertain of Gon's mental state, Killua lingers behind Gon too long.

He does not link up with Meleoron, and worse, far worse: he does not spare Knuckle from Youpi's killing blow. His tears do not jump-start the rewiring of Palm's brain, and through her third eye she shows Pouf the rest of the infiltrators. 

When Pouf and Youpi return with their King, Gon and Killua are surrounded, and alone. 

By the time Killua is able to rouse Gon from his all-consuming vigil, it is too late to run. The pair know they stand no chance against all three Royal Guards; to fight the King would be worthless - worse than suicide. If Gon could just kill Pitou, perhaps he could, at least, free Kite. Killua whispers for him to wait, as if Gon doesn't know that his first move in this situation will be his last.

Neither knows what to make of the tension in the room between the three Guards. 

Until Meruem arrives, and sees Komugi. Where Pitou's aura crushed wills with the force of a boulder, Meruem's has the weight of a mountain. Turned on the two boys, Killua falters. Gon sees Pitou, and only Pitou. He sees her bow her head to Meruem; he sees Meruem place his hand upon it, then raise it with his finger and thumb. Gon watches him anoint her with golden nen; watches it blend with her own deep black until the two become one.

"My faithful companion," the King pronounces, "You will be my shield."

Gon is about to make his move when Shaiapouf seizes him by the throat in a crushing grip. 

"A repast to refresh yourself from your recent travails, my liege. I assure you his flavour will be exceptional."

Meruem glances over his shoulder. His eye narrows at the interruption. "They arrived with the rest? The invaders who succeeded in separating all of you from me."

The Guards' chagrined silence is answer enough.

"The other one shares blood with old man who summoned the dragon. And this one - he waited for you to finish healing Komugi, did he not? At great cost to himself," states the King.

Pitou admits that Gon did. Secrets between them are now as meaningless as falsehoods.

"Then there will be no more bloodshed. I had decided to spare the human who fought me. I will spare these two in his stead."

Pitou's eyes gleam, bright and playful. "May I keep them?"

"Do as you will." 

Shaiapouf drops Gon, who coughs so hard that he retches. Killua crouches wordlessly at his side and places shaking hands on his shoulders. The King collects Komugi in his arms. The Guards kneel in the wake of his departure; they know he is not to be disturbed.

Unlike the other Ants, the Guards must speak aloud. 

"Pitou, would it have killed you to fail at _one_ task?" Shaiapouf snaps. "He'd forgotten that girl. He'd forgotten _everything_."

"How was I to know? And what does that matter? It was an order."

"It might have been disloyal," Youpi disagrees, "But it was for his own good. Who knows what he plans to do now? These creatures are too dangerous for catch and release."

While they argue, Gon pulls Killua close, and speaks just above the sound of silence. "Can you run faster than they can fly?"

Killua nods; he can, but they will never let him out of the room. 

When Killua realizes, a heartbeat later, what Gon intends to do, his fingers clench in the fabric of Gon's shirt. Gon won't let him break his gaze.

"I told you. I'm allowed to be selfish. I'm going to do it whether you run or not."

Had they been braced for the attack, the nen blast that Gon could muster without focus or warning would hardly have tousled the hair of Shaiapouf or Youpi; caught unaware, it is a sucker punch to the latter's face and the former's spine, followed up with equal ferocity.

Through the space and time Gon has created for him, Killua runs. Gon smells salt and ozone.

Youpi and Shaiapouf take wing in pursuit. Gon trusts Killua's speed. 

In the small part of Gon's mind from which rational thought has not fled, he has seen Pitou's aura and knows that by himself he stands little chance of defeating her. But, as with his game with the Chairman and his battle against the Bomber, victory depends on the condition on which it is set. Even if he dies here, if he can force her to use all of her nen, Kite will be free.

This is, after all, the fight he wanted.

She has seen him strike now and thinks that's the measure of his power; he uses that to misguide her into letting him focus and the real strength of his Rock blasts her first lunge off target. When she lands on her feet and bounces off the stone wall back toward him unphased, he meets her with a flurry of fists.

She in turn meets them with her claws extended and slices them both bloody.

Gon ignores the pain; he's drawn her into the range of his kick; he grabs her hands to give himself the opening. It lands solidly on her chin and sends her flying. 

Pitou lands on her feet again. Cracks her jaw back into place. Two of Gon's fingers, severed neatly from the bone, hit the floor and roll.

Gon holds nothing back. His blood red and flame orange nen sears against her gold and violet, both deepest black at the edges, and to the surprise of both Gon's endures. He matches her nen attacks blow for blow.

But she is too fast for him.

He recalls, far too late, that she was too fast for Kite as well. His plan to compensate for it may be miles away by now. For every blow of hers that he can block there's another he can't, and even a glancing clip of her ankle somewhere he's failed to fortify with _ken_ is sufficient to snap joints and break bone. She breaks his wrist, his elbow, his nose, his kneecaps. Gon struggles upright each time. He will continue. Until he has nothing left.

Pitou is merely batting him around with her paws. She breaks his back last.

Gon can no longer even crawl; Pitou sits cross-legged on the floor beside him, panting, and pulls his head tenderly into her lap. 

"Don't worry, you'll live," she assures him, "The King wills it. And I will be much more careful with my toys."

Before Pitou can repair him, however, Youpi and Pouf return to her, bleeding and faint. At first she marvels at how the other boy could possibly have done this, then recognizes that something is very wrong with them. Gon momentarily discarded, she summons Doctor Blythe for Youpi, who appears to be on the verge of death. Inside him she finds the sickness that has taken root in his body; she mends the worst of it and moves on to the other Guard to stabilize him as all three realize at once what this could mean. The King's very life is in danger.

Had Gon not been so tenacious, Pitou would have left him there. Her concern for the King would have overwhelmed her sense of caution regarding a broken toy. Had she not seen his resilience, his indomitable determination, the extent of his hatred, his story would have gone differently.

For unbeknownst to Gon, Killua has sworn to never leave him to die. As soon as Killua sensed the Royal Guards lose his trail, he circled back to the palace. To the tower in which he last saw Gon. Had Killua found him there, abandoned, he would have fled with him over his shoulder.

Instead, Killua finds nothing save evidence of his friend's utter defeat. That there is no body staves off the upwelling of tears; his lip has just begun to tremble when Meleoron materializes into his watery field of view. Together, they might be able to save him yet.

Gon has been brought into the presence of the King. The Ants pay no heed to his writhing or his sounds of misery. Pitou is healing Meruem while the other Guards stand watch; they discuss the perplexing nature of the explosion, and the poison, that brought even their monarch to the brink of death. 

Killua knows what a Poor Man's Rose is. He recognizes the signs of radiation poisoning. He sees that the King is recovering. Immediately, he understands the Chairman's gambit, and that it has failed. 

Spent, nenless, and distracted, if Killua attacked Pitou now it is possible he could kill her. If he did, perhaps the King would still die. 

So would he, and so would Gon. Without Killua's speed, Meleoron's ability would not last long enough to make it out of the palace either. All three of them would perish for him just to take a chance, not a certainty. And no one would ever know that the King had survived, until it was too late.

Meleoron's ability extends only to one other person: if Killua brought him to Gon, they could make it out of the room together. Killua might be able to give them seconds, minutes to get clear. But Pitou's _en_ , let alone the King's, would be sufficient to spot them both the moment Meleoron needed to breathe. They could never escape.

If Killua grabbed Meleoron and Gon both and poured every ounce of strength he possessed into his speed, perhaps the King would be too weak to follow, and the Guards would not be fast enough. Perhaps the King wouldn't strike them all down the instant Killua revealed himself. 

Perhaps. Maybe. Possibly. If. Gon's words thrown back at him. These aren't words on which he can hang the future of mankind. He's been handed the devil's decision. There was only one choice he could make from the start.

Inside Meleoron's sightless, soundless, nen-crafted oblivion, standing ten feet away from the objective for which so many have given their lives and the boy he loves, Killua screams at the top of his lungs. 

Then he returns to Peijing to warn the other Hunters.

The one alternative that would have certainly succeeded - to appear in the room, kneel before Meruem, and beg for his and his friends’ freedom - never occurs to Killua.

For having spared Komugi's life, the Ant King is already inclined to be merciful. Killua may have guessed that, but he could never have inferred how much the battle with the Chairman has changed him. How impressed, and humbled, Meruem is now by the ingenuity and determination of humans. By their selflessness. Had Killua but asked, it would have been granted.

In light of these events, the nature of the Selection changes. The Ants will awaken the nen of the assembled crowd much more slowly. Meruem has witnessed this gentle awakening in Komugi herself, of her own accord. He knows what must be done. This will take days rather than hours. The Royal Guards mislike it, but they obey.

Instead of less than one percent of the people of East Gorteau surviving Selection, almost ten percent do. The rest become food for the Ants and the cocooned hybrids.

Pitou's assistance with the Selection prevents her from seeing to Gon's injuries for several days. The other Ants pay him no heed; they know he belongs to Pitou and he is not to be eaten. He tries setting his own bones, and has some success, but there is nothing to be done for his spine. When he tries to crawl the agony is enough to make him heave up bile - when he pushes through that, it is enough to render him unconscious. 

Outside, millions of people are dying. His friends are likely already dead. Pitou is alive. Gon weeps bitterly in frustration at his own weakness, and failure, and wonders how Killua handles pain like this without losing his sanity.

Komugi hears him and brings him a cup of water.

In two days Gon has made it to the threshold of the King's hall. He is barely lucid when Pitou returns, to weave her threads of nen through his body and mind. She heaves his limp form up over her shoulder and carries him down to the basement of the complex. 

The King has no intention of keeping concubines; Pitou has permission to re-purpose the area where the human king kept his into a training ground. It resembles a human hive to some degree, after all. Their allies, new and old, will need practice facing fellow nen users, and what better than this one, ferocious as he is?

Gon awakens to find himself bound by unbreakable strings. Just as Kite was. He knows what is to come; he destroys the fake building in which he's been housed in his first attempt to get free, while Pitou watches from across the street. 

She allows his bonds just enough play that they can dance again.

She breaks even more of his bones, this time.

And heals him very slowly.

Gon soon discovers that he has no choice. If he refuses to fight, Pitou's nen will raise him aloft like a puppet and force his body through the motions. Through the motions of ren and hatsu; all of the abilities she's personally seen him wield. All resisting does is make the battles worse for him, and his recovery waits on her whim. 

Gon resists regardless. He is certain that Pitou will give in first, just like Hanzo did.

This is a miscalculation. While Pitou respects Gon, he is ultimately nothing more than a beast of burden to her, to serve the purpose to which he's been set. She is swayed by neither his logic nor his humanity. 

Nor do his injuries stop at broken arms. A question Killua had, following the Hunter Exam - why Hanzo stopped when he could have forced Gon to submit - makes perfect sense to Gon now, where it had puzzled him before. In his own mind he would never have given in, no matter what. Hanzo would have to have killed him, then would have failed.

The Ants blind him and flay his skin and puncture his organs. They leave him hours, and days, unhealed, to the brink of death. They refuse him food and sleep until the things he sees and hears no longer reflect reality. They hold nothing for him but contempt. He learns to long for Pitou, to make it stop, even just for a little while.

The anger is what finally breaks him. For the Ants, and for himself. 

Why shouldn't he fight them? He hates them. They butchered so many innocent people. They killed his friends. They did _this_ to Kite, and it is horrible. 

Gon has a mantra: Killua survived, Killua found a way to free Kite. That's why Pitou has never gone back for her other victim. This is Gon's own punishment. For his failure. To take Kite's place.

Gon starts fighting of his own will. That way, he can fight to maim, fight to kill. He learns to relish it. He fights scores of battles a day, and this inhuman regimen improves his strength and his skills to a degree unimaginable to most. With no way to tell time, he marks it between bouts by the number of opponents he has defeated on the wall of his lavish bedroom-turned-prison cell. 

No small amount must have passed: his hair has grown out. His clothing fits badly. His boots start to hurt his toes. Occasionally, he hears the sounds of battle from above. Feels the vibrations of explosions. They never mark the end of his captivity. He learns to stop hoping.

Pitou is delighted to have such a wonderful toy. It takes some trial and error to learn how to care for him: how much food and water he needs, how much sleep, how much conversation before he starts to forget how to speak. He is the King's own gift to her, so she is resolved to be a good owner. When he develops weakness in his bones and dimness in his eyes that Doctor Blythe can't fix, she discovers that he needs sunlight.

In time, Gon grows strong enough to snap single strings when she isn't there to control his movements directly; she crafts a thicker tether of nen for him before she takes him above. One that will strangle him if he misbehaves.

He does, of course, and she and Gon have a few of her favourite fights. Taking over his limbs spoils the fun; Gon smashes down an entire palace wall and earns Pitou a reprimand.

The other Ants learn to avoid Gon when Pitou takes him for his walks. 

On one of them, Pitou passes the King and Queen playing gungi in the gardens. Meruem calls her to his side. Komugi wishes to speak to the boy who was so badly injured by the invaders. 

"I heard Miss Pitou healed you." Komugi offers Gon a spot on the grass. "But I hadn't seen you since, and you were suffering so much - I was worried."

She is utterly helpless. And innocent. There is nothing she could do for him, not even a message she could help him pass to the outside world, even if he could get her to understand the true situation. In Komugi's world, she is the Supreme Leader's partner, and they are all his loyal servants. Outsiders sometimes attack, as they always have. All Gon could do is rip that precious illusion away from her.

Komugi cannot see the muscles in Gon's face ripple with the force of his restraint. Nor his fingernails gouge his palms bloody. "Pitou... Pitou is, taking... care of me."

To Pitou, privately, the King says: "I was naive. I once thought that humans kept animals for food, clothing, and service. Now I know that they sometimes keep them as treasured, lifelong companions. As brothers-in-arms, to whom they give ranks and titles. Depending on their nature, and their quality."

"Forgive me, my liege. Are you saying I've done well with him? Or poorly?"

"I am saying that he is a superior example of his species. And that there is much more to good husbandry than you may have considered."

During this time Killua has not been idle.

The same night he fled, Killua tried to impress upon the Association the need for urgent action. The Ant King was in the process of being healed, the Guards were sick and weak. They had to strike _now_. Knov was alive, Knov could take them there immediately. Millions of lives were on the line.

Yet if the Chairman himself had failed who could they possibly send? Who would have any hope of succeeding? If they resorted to similar methods and bombed the palace wouldn't they lose all of those lives just the same?

The Zodiacs are still bogged down in this debate when the Selection happens.

The nations of the V5 are just as hesitant to act. What's done is done. If the King hasn't begun to breed with humans to produce a new Queen yet, the problem is effectively contained. Military action will rile up East Gorteau's allies. This could lead to war. It is better to wait and see.

Of course, they know that this is only a matter of time. Reluctant to reveal the extent of their nen capabilities, each nation or group of allies sends its own strike team. Each team fails the same as the first.

Meruem offers these exceptional humans - those who survive - the choice of death, rebirth, or servitude.

By the time they resort to bombardment, the Ants have built surface-to-air defenses.

Given the choice of total war, or quarantine, the nations of the V5 choose the latter. The entire Mitene Union is written off as a loss; warships create a blockade around the island, while patrol boats provide critical reconnaissance - they are to report the first signs that the Ants have any kind of naval capability. Until then, the world is safe.

Rumors filter through the trickle of survivors from those countries. The new Supreme Leader of East Gorteau isn't human - he is a Divine King, who awakens the souls of his followers to Enlightenment. Others swear that he is a demon who consumes human flesh. Smugglers guide the religious and the reckless to the quarantine zone in search of both.

Given the state of emergency in the V5, there is no voyage to the Dark Continent. Kakin leverages military aid in return for admittance to the V6 instead. 

In desperation, Killua returns home and asks for his sister. Silva respects his vow; Killua frees her under threat and tells her to free Gon.

Nanika stares blankly. Says nothing.

His mind white with panic and grief over what that could mean, Killua betrays his ability: he commands her to kill the Ant King.

Nanika does not respond.

Zeno catches up to them. Finds Killua in a chasm of despair so deep he sees no light. Gives his grandson a cup of hot chocolate and tells him about Zigg Zoldyck and what he brought back from the Dark Continent. That Nanika can't grant his wish means nothing: if Chimera Ants are also from the Dark Continent, part of the same ecosystem, undoubtedly they have natural defenses against Nanika's kind. If Killua wishes to save his friend, he'll have to do it the conventional way.

Killua starts to gather friends and allies. Shoot will go without question. Knov refuses to be part of the rescue team itself, but he will help with transportation. Leorio admits that he is completely outclassed by the scope of the combat they're planning, but he'll be on the other side with Knov, ready to treat the injured. Kurapika will assist, provided Killua plans the attack after he's rounded up the last of the eyes. For Gon's sake, Bisky will join him anywhere, anytime. As will Kite, the moment he's strong enough - at the rate he's growing, it shouldn't be long.

It won't be enough. Killua tracks down Hisoka, and promises him the fight of his life if he joins them. Hisoka laughs and tells him he'll have to become much, much stronger for him to take him up on it... but he will, provided that he gets to enjoy both Gon and Killua together when the time comes.

As such Hisoka's match with Chrollo is indefinitely postponed. 

By the time Killua thinks to ask Ging, Gon's father has already travelled to the Dark Continent on his dragon.

It still won't be enough. They need a way through the blockade. They need to be organized, drilled to move as one the way the original Extermination Team wasn't. They all need to get stronger. 

Killua puts himself through the most grueling training he can find. He spars with his father and grandfather; he takes challengers at Heaven's Arena; he coaxes Kalluto into convincing the Troupe to let him try his skills against them, too. No one else will defend the people of Meteor City against the Ants if they break through, after all. They've proven that.

It keeps Killua's mind off how much he despises himself for breaking his promise. That even without the needle, when faced with overwhelming odds, he turned tail and ran. He left Gon to die. His last image of Gon, battered and suffering, still wakes him at night and sears behind his eyelids.

No, no, no. No. Gon told him to run. Gon is alive. Gon is his light. His purpose. He'll save Gon with his own hands.

Pitou manages to carve new depths into the well of Gon's misery, in the guise of a gift. Sometimes they are the King's willing servants and are overjoyed to have found purpose in creating a stock of nen-using, "special" humans with him. Most times they have as little say in the matter as he does.

They often find comfort in his feigned interest. So he pretends. More often than not they are so terrified at the notion of being bred to the savage creature in the basement a simple conversation about hobbies is enough to put them at ease. Gon dusts off old tricks, employs them to take the edge off. Kind words. Thoughtful gestures. It often works.

The times it doesn't, the times they curl into a ball of tears and scratch his face, Gon hates Pitou so much he can hardly breathe. 

Pitou watches, perched on the opposite rooftop, in case he requires her intervention.

When Pitou decides she'd like to play this game with him herself, hate consumes Gon's every thought.

_Killua survived. Killua found a way to free Kite--_

"Who's Kite?" Pitou asks, and Gon realizes he's spoken his mantra aloud. 

She'd simply pick it from his brain if he did not, so he tells her.

"Oh. Kite's dead."

She broke that toy years ago. All Gon had held in Peijing was corpse on strings.

Gon's aura turns black that day. Darker than Pitou's, darker than the King's - the kind of black from which no light escapes. 

Killua finds his way around the blockade. Meleoron has been training, too: he is strong enough to extend his absolute _zetsu_ to nen that others create. Killua sells his Hunter licence and combines his Heaven's Arena earnings for enough funds to hire his grandfather. He'll match whatever the Association paid: one Dragon Dive, and one dragon. Only the dragon itself is invisible, not its riders, so the Rescue Team flies high enough to be out of reach of Pitou's _en_ and prying human eyes. Grey against the silence of the night sky. The air is so thin as to require oxygen, so they carry masks with them. 

Behind his, Killua's eyes burn with such determination that Shoot tells him he reminds him of Gon. The last time they were here.

"Gon is alive."

Everyone nods.

Killua gives the signal. Spears of golden nen rake the ground; almost imperceptibly among them bolts of white lightning strike in the same number as the members of the Rescue Team. Knov sets his escape route the instant he lands and disappears into it.

The rest fall in a grid - a search pattern. This time, they can all communicate with one another. Whoever finds Gon first will alert the rest. Killua will come to them. The rest will begin their withdrawal while Killua takes Gon - either to Knov's portal or, if the way is blocked, to a predetermined location at the coast where a smuggler is waiting for them. Once their mission is accomplished they will scatter and retreat by any means necessary. Anyone who encounters a Royal Guard and who is forced into a fight will buy as much time as possible, then contact Meleoron to carry them to safety. Anyone who encounters the King will alert them to his location, and run. All other fights should be avoided or ended as quickly as possible. No battles, no casualties is the ideal outcome.

Due to his speed, Killua has the largest search area. It includes all of the lower levels; he destroys the elevator with lightning, then rides another bolt to the bottom of the shaft. From there, he will make his way back up, floor by floor.

It takes Killua precisely four seconds to find his friend.

This was not the outcome he expected, but it can't be denied: he's long-haired and barefoot and scarred, but even at Godspeed Gon is recognizable to Killua. Killua did not expect to be a hundred meters underground when he found him, but this time Killua has prepared for contingencies: he sends the cell signal to the surface with his own nen.

[rock]: their code for objective spotted. The signal for Killua to come to their location, and for everyone else to converge on their exfiltration point. Killua will text [paper] as soon as he has Gon in his arms, followed by [scissors] if the path is clear and Knov should hold the portal open for him, or [tie] if it isn't, and Killua will make for the coast.

The contingency Killua hasn't prepared, at the fountain of the artificial town's plaza, is for Gon to be crouched at Pitou's feet while she idly strokes his hair.

Grabbing Gon will bring Killua within range of her claws, so should he attack first, and risk catching Gon in the blast, or--

"Kil-u-a." Gon forms the syllables haltingly; Killua is stopped in his tracks by the sound of the first one.

Killua looks well. He's much taller than Gon remembers. Taller than Gon. He's dressed in black and grey. His hair and face look like they were streaked with black, too, but the electricity has burnt the paint off. Now they stand out starkly.

Gon is still wearing the same clothing Killua last saw him in, filthy and frayed.

"You came back," says Pitou. She flicks her tail.

"Gon." Killua's voice is tight with emotion. "Let's get out of here."

"I can't." The reply sounds angry, and it is. If Gon could just _leave_ , why wouldn't he have? Years ago? If Killua's so smart, how can he not understand this situation? Of all the times Killua has told him he was stupid, and Gon agreed, Killua is an idiot if he doesn't know what's going to happen next. 

Pitou is going to make Gon kill him.

And yet Killua just stands there, clean and well-fed and rested and with that idiotic hope on his face, that they've been reunited, that everything will be fine now.

Gon watches Killua text [rook] inside his pocket.

How can Killua not realize he has the same choice as before? Run. Or die. "Hey, Killua? Did you know?"

"Gon, come here. Everyone's waiting." 

"I can't." Gon doesn't know how much time Pitou will give him.

"You don't have to fight her. I'll--"

"I. _CAN'T_ ," Gon growls. "Killua. Did you know Kite was dead?"

This was not the question Killua was expecting. He stumbles over his words. He has to find a way to tell Gon that he understands: that he is under Pitou's control. That he plans to knock Gon unconscious and carry him away. They don't need to fight. "What? No, I - I mean, he's not, Gon, he's _not_. He's _here_."

"Liar-liar," Pitou purrs.

"I'm _not_! He was, but then he- Gon, we don't have time for this. I'll explain later. For now, just... rest." It's as obvious as Killua can make it.

"Ah." So Killua doesn't know that Pitou's hold over him will work whether he's conscious or not. Idiot. If she could use it on Kite's corpse, why wouldn't it? He'll never see it coming.

At least down here, Killua will have a fighting chance. 

"I'm not coming with you," says Gon. "You failed."

"What?" Killua looks dumbfounded.

Gon will help him find his way. "You _failed_. Just like last time."

Those were the words Gon meant to cut with. But when he starts to speak, all of the other words he swallowed all those years ago begin to claw their way out of his throat along with them. "You failed, and it's your fault. Just like last time."

"No," Killua whispers.

"You know it is! If you hadn't held me back, we could have killed her. She was defenseless. You _stopped_ me from _ending_ this."

"No no no," Killua continues, and the tears Gon is expecting - the useless tears he is so sick of - begin to flow.

"Our friends are dead because of you. The King is alive because of you. And for _what_? Kindness to a stranger? Concern for an enemy? Concern for _me_?"

"No, it isn't, wasn't, I'm sorry..." Killua's voice is faint. Fragile. "...help me..."

" _Help_ you? I'm like _this_ because of you." 

It isn't untrue. On some level, Gon means every word. _Run, or die, Killua_. Gon has seen his aura; Killua stands no chance against him alone now, let alone him and Pitou. Gon doesn't want to kill him. Not Killua. Please, not Killua. Gon has never begged Pitou for anything. From the depths of his soul, he doesn't want to start.

"No..." says Killua, just as quietly, but the tenor of his voice has changed. "...Because of her."

Pitou's ears perk. She glances upward. "Rain...?"

"It doesn't matter anymore." Killua's aura has changed. It is bright and cold and bleak. It cracks the concrete beneath his feet in forks. His eyes lose their colour; they burn electric white. "It doesn't matter if this is the last battle I ever fight."

Killua is fast enough to reach Pitou before she can move out of the way. Fast enough to pull back when she maneuvers Gon into his path in front of her. Fast enough to leap clear of Gon's fist before Gon blows a hole through his chest. 

Fast enough to duck and weave around Pitou's claws when she lands behind him.

The trouble with fighting multiple opponents, Gon now knows after much intimate experience, is not as simple as avoiding higher numbers of attacks. Unless they've trained together enough to read one another's movements without thinking, the effort of coordination will at the very least slow them down. At worst, they'll interfere with one another's actions. With Pitou controlling Gon's actions directly, there's no chance of interference. However, Pitou must think for two bodies; two sets of limbs. Gon's automated reactions are too predetermined to amount to much against an opponent of Killua's strategic caliber, and the resulting delays in Pitou's own reactions make Killua impossible to pin down.

That, and whatever he's done to himself. Following one failed lunge for Pitou, Gon hurls Killua right through one of the houses and out the other side. Killua emerges in a charred cloud of rubble, cables, and powdered drywall, unscathed. He blazes like a flaming star in the basement dimness; he leaves a trail of sparks when he moves. He fills the air with the stink of burnt flesh.

Gon doesn't know what Killua's done. All he knows is that Killua's given up. So he can't.

Gon's own hand stings where he touched Killua; Pitou loosens her strings enough to allow him to flex it, and shakes out her own paw. Killua shrugs off the tangled house wires and Gon yearns to do the same.

Killua's positioning is perfect. He can't know this terrain as well as Gon and Pitou, yet he uses it to his advantage to prevent them from overwhelming him as if by instinct. Gon knows it isn't. Killua is trying to find an opening in an unwinnable situation: so long as he refuses to hurt Gon, Gon is an impenetrable shield for Pitou. This stalemate will hold indefinitely.

Killua's thinking is too conventional, as always. Gon's already found the answer. 

All he needs is enough slack to speak, and words Pitou won't understand. 

Gon trusts Killua to outmaneuver Pitou enough to attack her directly at least once. Killua does, and Pitou retreats to safety behind Gon. Good. All Gon needed was the distraction. For her to have to focus on herself.

"Dodgeball," Gon says. "My turn."

Gon telegraphs Paper as much as Pitou will let him; Killua kites to the side, closes in; Pitou changes it to Scissors just before it goes off; Gon gets a faceful of Killua's blood; Killua bridges the gap and knocks Gon to the ground. Pins him with his knees and grasps the side of his face with his remaining hand.

For an instant, a moment far less than a second in length, Gon feels what Killua feels. The pain is crippling. It sucks the air from his lungs. Before his capture, before the Ants broke him a thousand times and put him back together again, it would have knocked him out cold.

It passes. Pitou starts to shriek.

Killua's power is still flowing through Gon. As harmlessly as through any other conduit. Past him, through the wires of nen inside his mind and into Pitou, who forms the last connection, the complete circuit with the ground.

Killua pours everything he has into the current. His tears sizzle, steam, and dry before they ever hit the floor.

Pitou can't bear it. She snaps the threads.

Killua topples bonelessly; Gon catches him before he hits the concrete. Sets him down. Stands, and stretches. Cracks his joints. Marvels at how he can move his limbs however he likes.

The damage from their fight and Killua's powers have short-circuited the controller for the powerlines in the basement. Everywhere the orange emergency lights don't touch is pitch black.

This suits Gon just fine. He spots Pitou, crouched in the amidst the ruins, still blanched and trembling in the aftermath of the agony they caused her.

"I want to play another game with you," says Gon, at the center of absolute darkness, "Winner takes all."

When their game is over, Gon carries Pitou's crushed head back to Killua's side. Drops it. Picks up Killua's instead and sets it in his lap, the way Pitou used to do with him. Killua is still breathing. Gon took his arm of cleanly and the stump is singed shut. Killua's clothing has melted to his skin and his eyes have melted in their sockets. At first, Gon mistook the oozing fluid from his eyelids for tears. 

The burns are probably worse on the inside. It won't be long.

In a pile of smashed glass, Killua's phone vibrates. He must have dropped it during the fight. Gon picks it up, then returns to Killua's side. Scrolls through the messages. At first, they're cryptic. Bishop. Knight. Scissors. Location? As the timestamps increase they are less so: where are you, do you need help, we can't find you, the king's spotted us, we can't keep it open, head for the coast. Some of them sound like a girl wrote them, others remind him of the proper way Kurapika speaks. One has diamond and spade emoji. Gon wonders who else came for him. Killua said Kite did. Pitou lied.

He could text them back. Find a place with a signal. Ask where he was supposed to go, what Killua had arranged for him on the coast. No one will know what happened down here yet. In the chaos up above, maybe he could escape.

That's undoubtedly what Killua would want. His friends to succeed on their mission to free him.

But as Killua must know by now, that wouldn't be freedom at all. 

Killua is holding on. Gon won't make it out with him. If he waits, he won't make it out at all. If he leaves him here, he'll never know.

If Gon kills Killua himself, he will.

Gon takes Killua to the King. 

In the two of them, Meruem sees himself and Youpi emerging from the flames of the Poor Man's Rose. He sees the selflessness of the Chairman; when Gon offers his willing service in return for Killua's life, He understands the cost. In His infinite mercy, He allows them both to become one with Him.

Scars of the battle linger: Killua's left arm is gone, and he is blind. He proves to be exceptional at games. He picks up gungi quickly, though never to Komugi or Meruem's level. His real talent lies in tabletop representations of the real world, where he offers insight that frequently surprises both. He is permitted to serve as one of the Queen's attendants. She teaches him how to adapt to his new life. He provides her companionship when Gon has other duties.

Which, having taken Pitou's place as a Royal Guard, is often.


	2. Intimacy x and x Codependence - Part 1: Infatuation  | Departure (7 July 2000 - 16 August 2001)

Gon says too much. He does not temper his rebuke into a single, biting retort. He vents everything he truly feels about Killua's tepid, patronizing admonitions for caution. As if he'd never _considered_ that their enemy might be telling the truth - well, so what if she is? And what if she isn't? They have a plan to execute. 

Not that Killua cares much about that, apparently. Gon saw Killua go back on his own advice and stray from his heels the first chance he _got_ to help Ikalgo. Was that a tactical decision? Or was it emotional, just like it was with Nobunaga? Is Killua second-guessing his own strategy in order to adapt to the evolving situation, or is it simply out of fear?

For which reason is he second-guessing _Gon'_ s?

Gon _told_ him that he needed Killua to be the calm, rational one, and maybe that's what he's trying to be. 

But maybe it isn't. Gon isn't blind to how withdrawn Killua's been for the past few days. Gon can hear it in his voice; smell it in his sweat; feel it in the way Killua hovers further behind him than his own shadow. 

If, like Knov, Killua is too terrified to be here, he shouldn't have come in the first place.

"Don't you mean _maybe_ I'll never get Kite back if I kill her," Gon spits, " _Maybe_ I never will if I _don't_. _Perhaps_ that's exactly what I need to do."

"Gon," says Killua evenly, _condescendingly_ , as if it were _obvious_ what Gon should do and Gon is just too _stupid_ to see it, like always. "Nen can be stronger after dea--"

" _You_ don't KNOW. THAT. YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING. YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING MORE THAN I DO."

Killua looks pitying. Gon doesn't need his pity. Killua doesn't know Kite; doesn't care about Kite. When it comes to something Killua cares about Killua isn't any better than Gon is: yet he's carrying on, lecturing, like Gon hasn't heard his quiet sobs when he doubts himself, when something is out of _his_ control. 

So, Gon tells him as much. Tells him everything. That he can't trust him in this situation, and why. He holds nothing back. Killua's lip curls upward; trembles. As if there was anything they needed less right now than more of Killua's useless tears.

Killua's lips move, and what he says is scarcely audible above the roar of aura in Gon's ears. "...just wanted to help you."

"THEN HELP ME," Gon's voice cracks when he snarls, as do the tiles beneath his feet.

Killua's intake of breath is pitiful. "What do you need me to do...?

"What _can_ you do?"

Killua sniffs wetly. Scrubs the back of his forearm across his face. Tilted downward, his hair conceals his expression. When he speaks, his voice is steadier, and there is an edge to it that renders it slightly less than hollow. "Will you let me do the talking?"

Gon nods.

In the corner of Gon's eye, Killua pads around him to Pitou's side. She observes both of them with equal intensity, subtly shifting to block Killua's path to the wounded girl as he draws near. 

Killua extends his hand above Pitou as one would reach out to a stray cat: when no attack is forthcoming, he closes the distance and lays it on her head.

"Who are you?" Killua asks her.

Pitou doesn't know what to make of the question any more than Gon does. "What?"

"We don't have time for this," Gon growls.

"You asked for my help." Killua silences him with a glance; his small irises are flat specks of void. "You want to keep healing her? Then answer my questions. So long as you tell me the truth we won't stop you."

Pitou swallows. Nods. "Neferpitou. One of the King's Royal Guards."

"Who gave birth to you?"

"The Queen."

"When were you born?"

"Two months ago."

"Who is this girl?"

Pitou hesitates. Not because she has already answered this question, though that alone is suspicious. Pitou hesitates because she, unlike Gon, has some idea of what Killua might be trying to do. "I told you - someone important to someone who is important to me."

"Who is this girl?"

Pitou knows this line of questioning is dangerous. If she answers honestly, her enemies could exploit the King's affection for Komugi to their advantage. If she doesn't... "The world gungi champion."

"Who is she important to?"

Pitou hesitates again. 

Gon is losing what little patience he has left. He can understand Killua wanting to make sure of their situation, but this pointless: she's only going to lie. She could be tearing that girl apart from the inside out as they speak. Turning her into another Kite. 

Gon breaks Pitou's nose with one punch. He feels the cartilage crunch between his knuckles. It feels good. "Answer the question."

"All of us." Pitou pauses to snort blood. "She's important to all of us."

Killua pulls his hand away. Flips it over to look at it. His tiny smile is ugly. "Nice. It even works for half-truths."

Gon and Pitou glance up at him simultaneously; the former in wonder, the latter in fear. "The signals in your brain," Killua continues, "are electric. They go to different places if you're remembering something, or you're making it up."

Gon wonders if he's bluffing; Pitou knows he isn't.

"I figured I might be able to do this, but..." Killua trails off and does not finish the thought. "Works a whole lot better when you hit her though. Gon. The information you normally get this way is crap. People say anything. This changes everything."

Even if he can tell truth from lies, there's a flaw in Killua's thinking. It's what Gon would choose to do. As hateful as he finds her, Pitou's proven she has the determination. "She just won't talk at all."

"She will."

If she's innocent, Gon won't really hurt the injured girl. Killua has to know that. And if they kill Pitou, they'll never get Kite back - wasn't that what Killua had just tried to tell him? 

"Killua. This won't work."

"Why? Because she's willing to have her arm broken?" Killua's lip curls. "You know Hanzo let you win, right. He could've beaten you. I could've beaten you."

Gon's jaw is set. "You would've had to kill me."

"I wouldn't have to kill you." Killua presses his free hand to the side of Gon's face. He traces a scalpel-sharp nail from Gon's temple to the inner corner of his eye socket. "To ruin you for the rest of your life." He applies slight pressure; not quite far enough to penetrate into Gon's brain. "You wouldn't know what your father was, let alone that you were trying to find him."

Killua's gaze is the same as Mike's.

"Prove it," says Gon. "Do it."

"This is _your_ fight," Killua spits Gon's words back at him, "Do it yourself."

Gon grasps Killua's claws. Yanks them free, and stands, though he does not release them. "Tell me how."

It's incredible, how much Killua knows about the human body. Where all of the nerves are, and the fastest ways to get to them. Since Chimera Ants have human DNA, Killua hypothesizes, their anatomy will be roughly the same, and he is proven correct. That Pitou is part cat is no matter: Killua is familiar with their anatomy too and it will take Gon months to imagine why.

They learn that the girl's name is Komugi. That she was brought here against her will. That she is the King's gungi opponent; that she believes that he is East Gorteau's Supreme Leader. That Killua was right: that she was injured in Zeno's Dragon Dive and that Pitou is healing her at the King's command.

Killua tells Gon to use his nen to start cutting.

They learn detailed plans for the Succession. The layout of the palace, how many Ants there are, and where they were posted. The location and disposition of the cocoons. 

The tower isn't very large, and they are all standing close together; Pitou's screams are so loud Gon's ears ring. His fingers are so slippery with blue blood that he has to grasp torn flesh in his fists.

They learn Pitou's own nen abilities. Those of the other Royal Guards. Those that the King has demonstrated, so far.

Gon leaves their side once, briefly, to heave up what he ate before the invasion. He's seen and discarded internal organs before; has hunted, fished, cleaned animals; he wasn't expecting the smell when they were opened. Killua waits patiently for him, hand atop Pitou's hair.

They learn what Pitou has done to Palm. What Pitou has done to Pokkle, and others. What Pitou has done to Kite; that Kite is dead and when Gon sees Killua's slight nod that Pitou is telling the truth he howls as loudly as she does in denial, grief, and hatred. 

But what else could Gon do to her that they haven't already?

Kite is dead because of him.

Kite taught him how to make sure the Ants were dead, too.

Gon clasps both sides of Pitou's head and pulls it away from Killua. Tilts her face up toward his own. 

Her skin is clammy and sweat-slick. Her eyes are bloodshot; her pupils are constricted. Pitou knows full well that when she has nothing more to tell them, they will kill her. Nevertheless, she is satisfied: Komugi's most critical injuries have been healed. What remains of her nen will finish the job; these children stand no chance against the Royal Guards in a true fight. She has carried out the King's request. She will entrust the King's protection to her brothers-in-arms. Let this boy break her neck, or rip her head off - at this point, death would be a respite.

Gon summons a surge of ink-black nen and crushes her skull between his bare hands.

He doesn't realize he's crying until he sees Killua's tears. They streak through the bits of bone and gore that have splattered across his cheeks; Killua isn't looking at the corpse at Gon's feet - he is looking at Gon.

An armslength apart, they cry together until they hear shouts from the courtyard.

Gon moves first. Killua follows several feet behind. Gon stops. Takes Killua's hand with blood-drenched fingers. They run.

Ikalgo and Meleoron don't know what to do about Palm. Neither is strong enough to fight her; when the boys arrive, they've gone into hiding. 

Neither says a word before they act: Gon distracts her while Killua moves in at lightning speed to jumpstart the connections in her mind with a single touch. 

The rest of the battlefield is silent. 

Between Palm's farsight and Killua's capacity to scout, they determine that the King and the other Royal Guards are dead. As are Knuckle, and Morel. Youpi killed both. Knov managed to rescue Shoot before the battle with Youpi grew too dangerous to intervene. Perhaps assuming that Pitou could handle two children on her own, Youpi and Pouf left soon after to be at the King's side, and were caught in the explosion the Chairman unleashed. 

They've won. At great cost, they've won.

The survivors return to the hospital where Shoot is and Komugi will be held until they recover. 

Gon, Palm, Knov, and Shoot mourn together.

Killua gets his own room for the first time since he and Gon started to travel together. Gon paces outside it for a handful of seconds before opening the door. 

Killua is sitting on the bed. The lights are off. He hasn't changed his clothes. 

"I'm sorry," says Gon, without hesitation or preamble, "I shouldn't have said that to you."

"No, you shouldn't have." Killua rests his head on his knees.

"You were right. I should have trusted you."

"I shouldn't have made you do that."

"You didn't make me do anything."

When Knov slips in the next morning, to tell Gon that Kite is alive, he finds the two asleep in the same bed, back-to-back.

For more reasons than he can put a name to, Gon finds it hard to face Kite. He cries throughout their meeting. He feels dirty and his dreams are morbid. Even after Kite absolves him, tells him that he himself should shoulder the blame, Gon feels unsettled. He sees the things he did in the food he eats; hears it in the shrill cries of excitement in passersby; sees the ropy nerves behind strangers' eyes and feels how easily their bones could break.

"How do you make it better?" Gon asks Killua.

"You don't," Killua replies.

They miss most of the Chairman Election. They're trapped in the auditorium for the final rounds of voting between Pariston and Cheadle with the rest of the Hunters. Neither of them pay much attention to the proceedings; after some gentle prodding about their own adventures falls flat, Leorio does his best to regale them with his exploits chained to a study desk. He invites them to stay with him for as long as they want; they decline.

Eventually, the other Hunters rat out Ging for hiding the bathroom.

Someone has sufficiently fortified the walls with _shu_ to prevent Ging from punching through them to make an escape route. Gon marches over with a reluctant Killua in tow. Ging finishes washing his hands for the eighteenth time. Looks at them dubiously, annoyance that Gon has brought him a stranger plain.

"What, are you kids married or something?"

Killua speaks first. "So what if we are?"

Ging counts on his fingers.

"Wait... how old are you again?" 

"Eleven," says Killua, and it takes Ging a full minute of eyeing the muscles in their shoulders and arms to shake his head.

"Who is this?" Ging asks with a scowl.

"Killua Zoldyck," Gon has the opportunity to tell him at last, "My best friend."

Killua's expression does not change.

"A Zoldyck, huh," is all Ging has to say to that. 

This feels wrong. At least, to Gon, it does. This isn't how he imagined his first meeting with his father - the disconnect is so great that when Ging suggests that this isn't the time or place for their encounter, and that they should meet elsewhere, alone, he readily agrees.

Gon spends the rest of the election looking at the shape of Ging's back in the front row. A day later he has already forgotten the outcome. 

Killua alternates between looking at his phone and watching Gon's face, in profile.

The suits they wore to the Yorknew auction no longer fit; they wear rentals to the funerals of the Invasion Party members who didn't return. Palm, Shoot, and Knov bring two well-behaved dogs each. 

Gon and Killua go to the World Tree together. 

Gon climbs first. His second meeting with Ging is less somber: here, Ging is willing to discuss his adventures, his plans, his philosophy. Ging leaves before dawn; Killua's footsteps are so silent and his _zetsu_ so flawless that Gon doesn't realize his friend has joined him until he sits down at his side. The sun rises with an enormous flock of birds. The sight of thousands of pairs of glistening wings in every shade of red-gold makes Gon shout with excitement and takes Killua's breath away.

Killua is wrong. The bad taste that lingers in every thought Gon has does start to fade. By the time they return to Whale Island, he's almost happy to see Mito again. He only sees a few rivulets of bloody tears in the firelight as it shifts across Killua's face. 

"Hey Killua," Gon tells him as they watch the stars, "Let's go to the Dark Continent."

If a simple change of scenery has done this much, a trip to uncharted territory should heal them both. Killua is silent for so long that Gon wonders, for a moment, if he has finally found something better to do than follow him, and braces for the argument, should it come.

"Okay," is all Killua says. "But you have to do something for me."

"I will. Do what?"

"I don't know yet," says Killua, and it will be many years before Gon realizes that this is a lie. "Whatever I want. So you'd better get stronger."

Gon has no reason to go back on this promise, and there are many preparations to make before the journey, so they spend the time training and gathering provisions. It seems an improbable coincidence when Leorio contacts them on behalf of the Association with a contract to do the same, all expenses paid. Ging tells them to take it: free money is free money, and they'll be out of his hair. They'll meet up on the shore when they arrive.

They are divided by skillset: Killua joins Kurapika among the elites, while Gon is sent to help Leorio and Mizai keep order in the decks below. A 14-year-old bodyguard would arouse too much suspicion; at Killua's own suggestion, he omits his surname and is enrolled in Prince Woble's service as a manservant instead. While some of other Hunters balk at what they consider a childish degree of audacity and subterfuge, Kurapika sees it for what it is: nothing short of a stroke of brilliance.

As a servant, Killua is all but invisible. Killua can move freely through the halls to acquire cleaning supplies and foodstuffs. His presence is utterly innocuous and he overhears idle chatter from the other servants and the other Princes' guards alike. No one suspects his true affiliation: the notion of a 14-year-old professional Hunter is equally ludicrous to the nen-less.

There are some flaws in this plan: after a crash course in domestic duties beyond basic personal hygiene yields less than convincing results, Killua gives up and instead spreads the rumour that Woble's mother has particular tastes. Between mediocre meal service, Gon's coaching, and a few appearances in the private areas of Oito's suite at inappropriate hours, it has the desired effect.

For his part Gon protects the medical teams sent to the lowest reaches of the ship to treat the sick and injured. He can't believe the reports of street toughs attacking them to steal their medical supplies until he sees it with his own eyes, and puts more than a few of them in the medical bay themselves out of disgust. 

That's only the beginning. During the initial rash of unrest that follows the ship's departure, Gon escorts the ship's security forces under Mizai to break up fights, burglaries in progress, bouts of domestic violence, turf wars, and even attempted ethnic cleansing. The complexities of these situations and how quickly they can devolve are overwhelming at first, but they're also exciting in a way that Gon hasn't experienced since he was in East Gorteau, or on Greed Island. Each one is its own puzzle, and it doesn't take long to discover that some of the perpetrators are nen users. Gon's battle experience grows exponentially.

When conditions aboard the ship settle down, Gon drops word with a few choice instigators that he'll take rematches. Between outright challengers and those who come at him in the passageways for revenge, he keeps busy in his spare time.

Still, the thought of spending two months without Killua leaves Gon with an emptiness he can't yet name. Of turning to find silent nothing behind him; of waking to anything other than the sight of pensive blue eyes; of a warm feeling that haunts him every time he bites into something sweet.

So Gon and Killua hatched a plan. To meet once a week, on Killua's day off, in Tier 1. They purchased schematics for the Black Whale on the Hunter website - not just architectural, but also engineering. Ostensibly, and openly, there is no access between Tiers 2 and 3, and the sole bulkhead is guarded, openable only from the Tier 2 side. But keeping two hundred thousand people alive for two months on recirculated air is impossible, Killua asserts, and is proven correct: a robust ventilation system moves air from intakes on Deck 2 down to 5 and back again. One can find their way through a maze of ducts, liferaft chutes, and sluice piping that drains excess water from the moat that surrounds the ship that is Tier 1. All are designed to prevent entry and exploitation; they were, however, not designed with an Enhancer who can tear open bolted panels with his bare hands and hold his breath for fifteen minutes in mind.

From the sluice gate, into which Gon punches teen-size hole, it's a simple matter of swimming far enough underwater not to be seen. As this ship is not actually at sail, it is manned by a skeleton crew and patrolled with the intent to catch nothing more than the occasional lost drunken dignitary. Tight security fortifies the deck with the King and Princes, not here. Killua gives the all-clear with a coin tossed into water; at his signal, Gon grapples up onto the quarterdeck and the two take shelter in a disused infirmary. 

Kakin Royalty has private doctors, and the medical bay for more advanced treatment is lavish. This infirmary is meant for the absent crew: locked, dusty, and austere. Gon and Killua eat botched meals from Oito's kitchen and talk for hours. Gon is amazed by Kurapika's other nen powers; Killua is jealous of the waterslide on Tier 3. Gon gets to spend his time brawling, training, and eating at the food court while Killua spends his days being nagged about napkin folds by old hags. Gon apologizes and offers him a good fight when they get to the Dark Continent. They spend the night together on the room's sole cot. Gon leaves in the morning.

They do this twice before Bisky catches them in the act.

"I've been tailing targets since before your mother was born," she declares, holding Gon up by the scruff of his tank top, "You stink like diesel! Do you really think Killua doesn't the next morning? Do you have any idea what else they put in that water?!"

Killua's bluff, that this was a chance meeting due to an emergency situation below, is magnificent but hopelessly marred by the beet red state of his cheeks. He knows that she knows exactly what they were up to.

Bisky spells it out for Gon.

"Are you going to stop us?" Gon asks, prepared to make a stand.

" _Stop_ you?" Bisky is incredulous. "You know what you've done? Found a way to pass information between decks outside of Kakin royal control. Maybe even supplies! And you were using it to what - make out in a closet?!"

"Heh heh. Well... uh," says Gon, "Yeah."

Killua gripes bitterly - they're going to cut into his and Gon's time together with pointless bullshit errands now, and the last thing he needs is Bisky spying on him. Gon puts a braver face on it, but is equally crushed.

Then, during the next week, Kurapika says the word 'nen' over the intercom and everything changes.

Their next meeting together includes most of their comrades among the Hunters, crammed onto every available space in the infirmary, and the first four hours are spent on strategy. The appearance of the nen beasts and the revelation of nen's existence has transformed the scope of their role utterly. Killua, it's decided, will continue to play ignorant to all of it; the rest of the Hunters can no longer hide. The next three are given over to a laundry list of training for Killua: now that they know there are nen users among the other Kakin security staff, he'll have to perfect _zetsu_ , and everything he does will have to be hidden with _in_. Gon joins in for moral support. His _zetsu_ is better; his _in_ is much worse.

They'd forgotten how ruthless a taskmistress Bisky could be: Killua barely has the strength to stagger back to the cot. Gon collapsed after hour two of hurling invisible, soundless, undetectable blasts of Rock into the air, but he recovers much faster, and pulls a fire blanket over Killua's prone form.

In the doorway, hands on her hips, Bisky awaits. "Don't think I forgot about you."

When asked what new things he can do with his _hatsu_ , Gon doesn't have much to say for himself. He can feint. He can use two back-to-back at greatly decreased strength. His mind has been on other things. He wants to tell her about Kite. He can't think of what to say.

Bisky has none of it. Gon will:

1) Not use nen against non-users. Not even for defense, or observation.  
2) Be able to use three of each skill back-to-back by next week.  
3) Climb the side of the ship without a grapple.  
4) Use _en_ to determine the location of the patrols without Killua's help, from underwater.  
5) Sneak up on Killua.

Gon thinks himself clever for trying his hand at Number 5 as soon as she lets him go; Killua opens an eye the moment he returns for their few remaining hours together, which doesn't bode well.

Gon's inherent Enhancer abilities shield him from the worst of the beat-downs he receives from hardened brawlers and expert martial artists, some on the verge of their own awakening. Bisky is right: there's so much more satisfaction in the fight this way. Every victory is triumphant; every loss is a valuable lesson. 

Practicing his particular brand of _hatsu_ in a confined space without too much property destruction is a much bigger ask. 

Empty spaces where supplies that have since been used once lay stacked, dining halls between mealtimes, unfilled waste and recycling chambers, and emergency stairwells become impromptu battlegrounds, and it isn't long before Gon makes a name for himself. A big enough name that the three families of Kakin's own underworld send their own enforcers after him - at first to remove the threat, then to hone their skills after it becomes well-known that Gon won't kill any opponent who surrenders.

Mid-week, Gon faces a bored-looking Cha-R underling with faint nen, blue eyes, and hands in his pockets. Who breaks down in sobs on the landing after Gon feeds him an entire flight of steel stairs. He never asked for this shit. He never asked to be a thousand miles away from home with no way back. 

Something stirs Gon to sit with him. Ask him why he came along on the Black Whale. His name is Sun-bin, and his family owes the Cha-R their lives. How many people can use nen? Not everybody has been drilled in it since birth like Gon, though. When Gon reveals that he learned it two years ago, Sun-bin is astounded.

Sun-bin can't walk; Gon carries him back to the family headquarters. Fixes the boss with a stare to let him know he's not here to fight - but he _will_ fight. 

The boss laughs, offers him a drink, and tells him to stay awhile.

They have eyes everywhere on the lower decks. They know Gon arrived with the Hunters. They also know his fights aren't sanctioned by the Association. In fact, how would he like to learn a little extra cash? They could use him for the same kind of work.

Gon won't steal food from the poor and sell it back to them. He won't attack doctors and medics. He's here to keep the peace.

"How old are you, kid?" Ittoku asks. "Where are you from? No, really. Sit. This is a friendly conversation."

Gon is fourteen, which rattles a few onlookers. Ittoku raises an eyebrow. He is from Whale Island, which only one man - whose father is a fisherman - has heard of. Pit stop in the middle of nowhere with a hundred people and one post box. 

"Sounds about right." Ittoku nods, and explains how things work to him. 

The passengers on the Tiers 4 and 5 already have to buy their food. If they can't, they starve. So the Families give it to them even if they can't afford it - on interest. The alternative is they break in, or riot, and nobody gets to eat. With one soldier for every couple hundred people, the law'd be overrun by the masses in a heartbeat. The Families keep the peace down here. 

And medical supplies? The only supplies they have down here ran out the first week of the voyage. Nobody's going to send them any more - what if someone with money needs them, up above? Everything's a finite resource. No permanent doctors, either. Help from the clinic on Tier 3 can take hours to arrive, if it arrives at all. The solution? Medics always carry way more than they need to every call. Shake them down for the extra when they're done. The Cha-R have the whole stockpile of supplies - the only people who could possibly keep it safe. Pay the Family for protection, you get what you need.

"Why should they have to pay for it?" Gon crosses his arms, stubbornly unconvinced. "Under threat."

"Jesus, kid. You never paid taxes? Oh right - of course you haven't. You're fourteen. What do you think happens if you don't? They take your shit and throw you in jail."

"Why doesn't the government pay you?" Gon asks, deep in thought. "You're doing their job."

Gon has no idea why that earns such a hearty laugh. He spends the night playing mohjang, learning about Kakin, and drinking so much rice wine Leorio has to give him an IV to keep him from puking all over the med bay. 

The Cha-R decide that he is 'alright' and is free to enter their turf as he sees fit to see for himself, so long as he's not on Association business. 

While Gon learns his lessons from the school of hard knocks, Bisky has other designs for Killua. His upbringing was rigorous in terms of stealth and surveillance, less so in infiltration and reconnaissance. She herself is an expert in neither, so during the moments they can steal together, she introduces him to a new teacher who is: Hanzo.

Killua objects; Bisky demonstrates that she can drag him anywhere by the ear even if he _is_ on the ceiling.

Hanzo is thrilled to induct an untaught pupil into the forbidden arts of ninjutsu. Killua rolls his eyes and groans so loudly when Hanzo tells him shinobi means 'heart under blade' that Hanzo has to clap his hand over Killua's mouth to prevent them from being heard in the next room.

"I come from a long line of shadow masters," Hanzo whispers, "We have skills an artless contract killer like you would never understand."

"That's my old job," says Killua, annoyed, "I'm a..."

Pro Hunter? A friend of Gon's? What is Killua now, and why is he here? The discomfort brought on by that line of questioning silences Killua long enough to listen.

Hanzo critiques Killua's inability to subsume his self to his chosen role, Killua tells Hanzo Zoldycks don't play dress up, this leads to a heated debate on the differences between professional assassins and shinobi that begins fairly esoteric and progresses to name-calling; Killua states as incontrovertible fact that he can do anything Hanzo can do better, and by the end of the second week of the voyage Killua is fit to serve tea to the King.

Privately, Bisky asks him if he's ever thought of using his _hatsu_ for anything other than combat. Before he snaps that of course he has, Killua follows the admission to where it logically leads, and shrugs.

Bisky has seen right through him before. He doesn't want to know what she'll say if she finds out what he and Gon did to Pitou. She'll probably tell him to stay away from Gon, she'll be right to do it, and there is no needle he can remove to make it better.

She seems unconvinced, but hmphs about teenage boys - as if her own abilities weren't geared entirely to combat and combat recovery - and hands him a piece of paper. Tells him to trace the ship's power lines all the way back to the main transformer. He scoffs; she reminds him that there are other nen users on the ship, and he'll have to do the whole thing with _in_.

In addition to his spying, his service duties to Oito, and his battle training, of course.

Killua hasn't been run so ragged since he was six. The only night he sleeps is the night before his meeting with Gon.

Killua puts his newly improved skills to use. He sneaks out mid-afternoon, hours before he'd told Bisky they planned to meet. 

She's a fool to believe him, anyhow.

Gon's an incredible hunter in the wild; he's adorably lackluster in an urban setting. Killua lets Gon stalk him all the way to the quarterdeck. 

"You got up here without my help." Killua leans on the railing, his back to Gon, eyes on the horizon. "Nice. _En_?"

Killua hears the mock-grab coming; he ducks and spins, even without nen he is faster than Gon is and likely ever will be. 

Killua ducks nothing but air.

Gon has halted his lunge a half-step short of his friend; still, Killua has all the time in the world to curse inwardly at Gon’s annoying penchant for improvisation between the moment he realizes it, and the moment Gon completes the grab, having now seen the direction in which Killua intends to dodge.

It doesn’t matter. Gon had never been in a fight in his life before he left Whale Island. Killua's known that since the first playfight they ever had - known it for certain ever since Gon did little more than thrash and gasp like the fish Gon had taught Killua how to land the first time their fights had been less than playful and after Gon had gotten too mouthy for his own good Killua had choked him out over a box of chocolate robots. So, maybe a basic headlock is a little too pedestrian for Gon these days - time to up his game.

Gon can’t improvise his way out of the legs Killua has wrapped around the arm that reached for him, nor the knee Killua has jammed against Gon’s throat while Killua yanks them both backward.

Gon doesn’t resist. He follows Killua - no, he adds all of his force and weight in the direction Killua was already taking them. Killua mistakes the hand that grips his outer thigh for panic or balance a second too long and when he realizes Gon has him stacked he squeaks out, “Fuck!” along with the rest of the air from his lungs. 

The star-speckled sensation of Gon wrenching his arm free is as surreal as the unprompted image of Leorio, Knov, and Cheadle teaching Gon how to escape an arm bar.

"Got you!" Gon beams.

"Total bullshit," Killua grumbles beneath him. "I'm out of practice. Besides, I could just--"

“Critical hit! Two points for Gon. Knockdown or TKO?” Gon wonders if Killua knows that he's blushing.

“You tell me.” When Killua wedges his knee up between Gon's legs with a truly evil smirk, Gon clambers off him in a hurry.

These extra hours don't just give the two more time for each other: they give them time to discuss things they might not want their other comrades to know. 

Such as who came looking for the dark-haired brawler they'd heard had never lost a fight. Gon legged it, but he knows they know he's here. 

"The Troupe?" Killua's legs are crossed on the cot; his back tenses in a way that tells Gon he's truly worried. "Fuck. Kurapika's gonna go ballistic."

"Yeah," Gon agrees.

"Listen. Gon." Killua grasps his shoulders. "Seriously. We can't tell him."

"I know--"

"That means we. Don't. Tell. Him. No blurting it out because you feel like it. No hints. Nothing."

"I _know_."

"Do you? You look like you're about to crack right _now_."

"Because--" Gon bites his lip. Killua shakes him. "Because, Killua..."

"'Because Killua' _what_ , go jump back over the side of the ship if you can't keep your mouth--"

"Killua." Gon silences him. "Illumi's here too."

Killua's mouth closes. His back goes rigid. He swallows.

"So's Kalluto."

Killua makes his voice quiet like he always does when he doesn't want Gon to hear it waver. "Where? _Why_?"

"Deck 3. And I don't know. It's not like I took them out for dinner. They were just... standing around."

Killua drags his hands down his face. "They're here for me. I know it. Dad probably said I had to come back."

Gon cups it and pulls it upright. "You're not going anywhere."

When the other Hunters arrive, Gon is amazed at how much Killua has learned about the Princes, their nen powers, their security, and even their relationships. He resolves to do his own best - at the very least, he can learn why the Troupe and the Zoldycks are passengers.

Bisky's weekly demands include five circuits around the upper decks, at a sprint, unseen. The loser will swim five circuits around the ship itself. Killua thinks nothing of it; Killua doesn't know how disgusting it is and how many intakes there are to avoid.

Gon gets spotted on his first round. After he climbs out of the water, he demands a rematch. 

They end up doing fifteen, all the way to the engine room and back, until Killua's shift is about to start, and he is a haggard, sweaty mess.

He still hasn't lost though. Even once. He sticks his tongue out at Gon.

Gon pushes him over the side.

Luckily, Gon is the faster swimmer.

The pool on Tier 5 broke two days into the voyage. Maintenance staff have never bothered to fix it; fresh water is rationed here - the passengers have collected and sold the chlorinated pool water down to the last drop. Its hollow shell is sturdy, tiled concrete.

This becomes their makeshift arena. They passed beyond television signals days prior, and video on demand exists only on Tiers 3 and above. Passengers line what was the deck, their shins dangling over the edge. An obstacle Gon is sure to avoid hurling an opponent into, or blasting with nen against another user. Within hours, it is broken and bloodslick.

Within hours after that, the Cha-R repair and clean it, making tidy profits off of entrance and betting fees. 

Gon spots Machi and Feitan in the 'stands'. Not knowing what else to do, he follows them when they leave. Weaving through crowds was easier when he was smaller; he tries to walk like Killua does and feels silly. Nobody could hear normal footsteps over the sounds of the engine and the ventilation system anyway. 

Phinks clasps one of his shoulders from behind. Nobunaga clasps the other.

They guide him to a table in the central dining hall. Chrollo sits at the head; Illumi and Kalluto on one side, Shizuku and Bono on the other. 

"Hello Gon," says Illumi. "How's Kil?"

Gon flattens both palms on the table. Leans over him. "You can't have him."

"Oh," says Illumi, "He _is_ on the ship."

Gon seizes his collar. Illumi stares at his hand. "We're taking this outside."

"Sit down," says Chrollo, and Nobunaga extracts Gon's fist while Phinks pushes him into an empty seat. "Where is Hisoka?"

Gon blinks. "...Dead...?" is the best answer he can muster. He has no idea what Heaven's Arena does with casualties. He doesn't know where Hisoka is from, or who his family is, if he had one.

"If you're lying," Chrollo assures him, "Feitan is much more adept at retrieving answers than Nobunaga."

Feitan snickers; he appraises Gon with the same clinical interest with which Killua told him how to sever Pitou's nerves.

Nobunaga butts in: "I don't think this kid could lie to save his own life."

"Hisoka faked his own death? He's here?" Gon mutters to himself, deep in thought over what that could mean.

"He's an acquaintance of yours, is he not? He may try to contact you. If he does, and you tell us, you live. If you don't, you don't. Do you agree?"

"No," Gon replies.

Gon can feel Phinks' repressed chuckle. Nobunaga and Feitan laugh outright. "Told you, boss."

"The offer stands whether you accept it or not."

"Let me go," says Gon, and stands up with a force that rends a man-sized tear in the deck beneath his feet through aura alone, "Or I'll accept it right here."

Phinks slams his head back down on the table.

Several Cha-R gangsters move to intervene; the higher-ups seem to think better of it and call them back.

"Interesting," says Chrollo. "It looks like we have more important business to attend."

Chrollo dismisses Gon. Gon stays where he is. Phinks drags him bodily out of the cafeteria and drops him in the corridor.

Gon bounces back up to his feet the moment he's released and makes for the door. Phinks catches him and hurls him backward. Gon kips up and rushes the door again.

Phinks punches him into the bulkhead. "Just stop, would ya?"

When Gon can breathe, he asserts his counteroffer: "Do something for me first, and I will."

"I don't have time for this shit, kid."

Gon takes a step forward. "Tell me how you snuck up on Killua."

"What do I look like to you? A schoolteacher? If you wanted to learn from us, you should've taken Nobu up on his offer."

Gon rushes him again.

At some point, fading in and out of consciousness in a heap at the bottom of the sludge drain into which Phinks has tossed him, Gon considers the fact that he may have bitten off slightly more than he could chew. He loses track of time - at some point a grease-streaked child with an empty tin can on the hunt for cooking oil pats him down for valuables and takes his Hunter license.

The child must have tried to pawn it through the Cha-R, Gon deduces, as some vague and unknowable hours of misery later, Sun-bin arrives with several of his mohjang buddies to drag Gon out of the pit. Their faces swim in a way that makes him nauseous.

Gon's next clear memory is of Leorio's standing above him, palms pressed to his temples. They feel cool. The blackout that follows feels restful, like sleep.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" 

Gon squints. "Four?"

"Well, that's an improvement." Leorio is smoking; this isn't the med bay - this is the semi-private berth he shares with Gon, Gon realizes. Gon hasn't been here in days. "Last time it was twelve."

"Oh, no. What day is it?" Gon groans: if he’s missed his date with Killua, the other boy will be furious.

Leorio jabs him with a finger and is rewarded with a pained squeak. "It's you're-never-leaving-my-sight-again o'clock, fifth of confined-to-tier-three-for-the-rest-of-the-voyage." 

"Why? What did I do?"

"Played hooky to go prize-fighting?" Leorio jabs him again. "You're a walking bruise every time you come by the clinic - when you _bother_ to come by the clinic."

"It's boring there," Gon protests, "You don't need me anymore."

"And you need to go get your head bashed in?"

"I need training. Or Killua is going to get stronger than me."

Leorio drags a hand through his own hair in frustration. "So do pushups in the waiting room! Use the pool! Do kata at the yoga classes! I'll let you carry every box we have around the medbay - all at the same time!"

"That's worthless. I can already do all of that." 

"Then at least have your fights up _here_. With rules! And referees! Not a bunch of lowlifes who try to pickle your liver!"

"They're not lowlifes." Gon pushes through the pain to sit upright. "They brought me to you, didn't they?"

"You had skull fractures! And engine fluid in your lungs!"

"So why didn't you come to me?"

The question is so absurd Leorio doesn't have an answer for it, at first. "...They didn't ask. Of course I would have come for you if they did, Gon."

"Mm. I wonder why they didn't ask." Gon crosses his arms. "Last week there was an old lady who had a heart attack in the common room and we couldn't get any of the doctors to come down."

"I didn't hear about that. I-"

"We got a paramedic in an hour, but we had to make her do it and it was too late."

"'We'? I heard one of the EMTs got kidnapped and dragged down to Tier 5 by the Cha-R-"

"How long has it been since you went down to Tier 5, Leorio?"

"I've been in _surgery_ , Cheadle has me run-"

"How long?"

"Not since the first week."

"It was pretty bad. Her grandson was there."

"Gon..." Leorio sighs. "I - alright. I'll put myself on rotation for Tier 5. So long as you come with me, okay? And no more street fights. You promise me. And you mean it."

Gon promises Leorio, and means it. He has an arena now, and much bigger fish to fry.

Later that day, in the pocket of his shorts, Gon finds a neatly folded triangle of paper. In an elegant script, it reads: "We're not here for Kil."

The Troupe teaches him lessons whether they want to or not. He shadows them through all three lower decks, much further back than before, and this time he remembers that he is hunted as well as hunter. There are no apartment buildings from which to get a vantage point; he sits in the far corners of packed dining halls with one eye on the exit, watching how they watch the crowds. Follows them two steps back from their last turn through nest-like corridors and learns to use the layout to guess at the path they take. He doesn't mind the trial and error. What he doesn't like is looking over his own shoulder. Like a scared prey animal - it makes him feel small. Vulnerable. It reminds him of the fear he sees in Killua.

Nevertheless, Gon does his best, and the week is nearly up by the time he finds himself in a dead-end, sealed emergency escape route between Tiers 4 and 5, with Feitan and Franklin in front of him and Phinks and Machi behind.

"You're damned lucky the boss told us not to kill you, bait." Phinks pops his neck. "You just don't know when to quit."

Gon falls into a ready stance. They're close enough for Scissors but he'll use Paper: a distraction to let him blast through the wall into the next passageway.

Machi puts out her hand. "Pay up."

Franklin scowls. Fishes for a bottle, and tosses it to her. "No fair - I didn't know he'd turned into Nobunaga."

"Watch your mouth. I did a number on the brat," Phinks snaps.

"Yeah, yeah. 'He'll be scared shitless. He'll never come within a mile of us again. He'll be lucky if he crawls off the boat at the end of this voyage.'" Franklin sounds unimpressed. "Seems pretty fine to me."

"Alright, I'll break his fucking legs this time." Phinks takes a step forward.

"Go ahead," offers Gon, "I know a good doctor. Do you?"

Feitan snickers. "Leave to me. This time, for real."

Machi uncorks the bottle and takes a swig. "I don't know about that, Feitan. Are you sure you can take him? You had trouble with one of the Chimera Ant captains. Illumi told me this kid fought in the Invasion."

"So?"

"It means he probably fought the King. Or at least one of the Royal Guards."

Phinks' eyes narrow. "That true, kid? You took out one of the Royal Guards?"

Gon nods.

Machi whistles. "You hear that, Feitan? Outclassed by a thirteen-year-old-"

"What, you and like a hundred other Hunters?" Phinks is not convinced.

"Me and Killua," Gon admits. They don't need to know the other details. He wouldn't tell them even if they did.

"Outclassed by _two_ thirteen-year-olds," Machi corrects.

Feitan hisses something unintelligible. He paces around Gon with a clear look of reappraisal; the same look Zepile would give an artifact after lab analysis had revealed a date centuries older than he'd thought. At last, he comes to a conclusion. "It boring here. Let him play." He shrugs.

"Yeah. Sure beats playing beat cop with the buddy system," Franklin agrees.

"Right." Machi nods. "I hate watching my back like this."

"You sure you wanna reward him for being a pain in the ass?" Phinks is the last to give in. "Fine. Guess we're all gonna get rusty, otherwise."

Killua has found himself with equally dangerous playmates in a much smaller playground.

He soon understands the utility of Bisky's insistence that he memorize and understand systems and circuits. Killua had been touching electronics directly and doing little more than turning them on or off, or breaking them. This is needless when he can simply touch a conduit that connects to the device somewhere down the line. 

No matter how far it goes, it doesn't require much more energy than it would normally to overcome the path's resistance. Because Killua's aura isn't merely like electricity - it is electricity. 

That comes with its own restrictions, of course. While externalizing it protects him from the worst of the damage, it shocks him the same as it would any other person. The further away it runs from his own body the more the effect is similar to Manipulation rather than Transmutation, the lowest of his skills. If someone were to try to counter him, they would likely succeed.

Which is why Bisky has made him practice _in_.

Unseen, Killua diverts signals from camera feeds and telephone conversations from all over the ship onto recording devices in Prince Woble's suite. This is unbeknownst to all except Kurapika: he is watched by his fellow servants and the other Queens' guards from the moment he rises to the moment he retires to bed.

But Killua does not sleep.

Midway through the week he takes Kurapika aside, and asks him privately, though not so quietly they can't be overheard, if Kurapika will teach him nen. To Killua's relief, Kurapika falls effortlessly into the motions of this performance: refusal followed by grudging acceptance, for Oito's sake. This should afford Killua some measure of deniability if he makes a mistake.

On their way back from the laundry that week, Killua offers to carry the load of one of Prince Tserriednich's servants when she complains about how much the cold salt air makes her bones ache. He is, after all, a healthy young man with a strong back. The guards at Tserriednich's door give him a once-over; they have better things to do with their time than help with menial tasks. The other security will watch him the whole time and won't let Killua anywhere near the Prince himself. 

Killua offers to help fold and stow. The other servant forbids him to touch the Prince's clothing or deliver it, but he is welcome to do the staff's. He enters their sleeping quarters with an armful of suits. Finds a female Hunter tugging a comb through her hair, over and over. Exhausted and visibly distraught.

Killua sets the suits down. Goes to her, and plucks up the comb, gently. "Here, let me."

"Are you new?" she asks.

Killua takes the hairs she's torn out from between its teeth and disposes of them. "Here to drop off the dry cleaning. I'm one of Prince Woble's," he admits, and strokes her bangs back from her brow. Brushes out the part.

At that, she relaxes. "Ah. Caref-- oh, you're good at this."

"Thank you, madam." Killua smiles the beatific smile of someone truly pleased to be of service. Mentally, he flips Hanzo the bird. "I used to do my sister's."

Next, the gambit: "But whatever's the matter?"

"I... Nothing. I can't - it's the Prince."

"They can be demanding," Killua demurs. "I keep secrets. You can tell me."

"You wouldn't - I can't."

"You can tell me," says Killua, and lays a hand on top of her head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter (and only this chapter) will be broken down into parts due to length.


	3. Intimacy x and x Codependence - Part 2: Reality | Rematch (28 August 2001 - 3 September 2001)

On the third week of the voyage and the night of their fourth rendezvous, Gon spots the flash of a silver coin as it drifts downwards under the starlight. He isn't anywhere near the ship that comprises Tier 1 yet, so he surfaces with some part caution amidst his curiosity.

Atop the platform of the main pump system that cycles water into the pipes through which Gon had just passed stands Killua, dressed in long shorts and long sleeves Gon hasn't seen in weeks. His hands are in his pockets. His eyes are the same colour as the sky.

He looks so much like he did when Gon first met him that Gon loses a toehold against slippery steel and splashes back into the water with a graceless squeal.

As he falls Gon sees Killua cover his face with his hand; between his fingers a crack reveals a chagrined smile. So Gon smiles too. 

"Here." Gon pulls himself up with Killua's outstretched hand. Catches him around the waist, and is surprised when Killua takes a step backward.

"Killua?"

"It's time for our rematch." 

Anticipation sets Gon's heels to bouncing at the offer. "How do we decide the winner?"

"We won't have to. You won't land a single hit on me."

Gon tests this with a light jab that should have ended up on Killua's upper arm. It connects with the air, and Killua is a foot to the right of where he should have been. Killua's damp hand, the one he used to help pull Gon out of the water, smells faintly of ozone.

A sweeping kick should be harder to dodge - Gon drops under any incoming counterattack and springs back up with left and right hooks that should have covered either direction Killua chose to move.

Killua steps around all three.

Gon reverses directions; this time the low kick is a feint, as are the punches. The real kick is high, with his other leg, right where Killua ended up the last time.

Killua steps backwards out of his range. Puts his hands back in his pockets.

Gon rushes him with a flurry of fists as fast as he can muster; those Killua doesn't weave around, he deflects with infuriating ease.

As he does with the second. And the third.

In lieu of a fourth, Gon begins to pace.

Rushing in without a plan isn't going to work. There's little terrain he can use to his advantage. No matter how complex his attack pattern, if Killua can back out before the final blow, it'll come to nothing.

Gon gauges the distance between them. The distance between Killua and the edge of the platform.

He launches himself forward and spins: a kick with both feet and all of his strength. Gon's body blocks the center - if Killua dodges left he'll walk right into it. Killua must choose back or right. A low kick: Killua chooses back. A punch: Killua chooses right.

When Gon has Killua in the back-right corner of the pump platform he repeats the pattern with the same furious intensity.

Killua is anticipating this.

But not that this is a feint.

Gon reverses directions with the other leg and aims for Killua's torso: it would have been Killua's stomach, but turned to deflect the blow he anticipates, it lands in the small of his back.

At least, it should have. Gon's triumphant cry is smothered by the sensation of Killua's fingers clasped around his boot. 

How did he block it? That wasn't where his hand was - Gon _knows_ that wasn't where his hand was. 

"See?" Killua casually tugs Gon off balance. "This is pointless."

Gon kips back to his feet. "No it isn't."

"I blocked it. I'll block everything else you throw at me."

Gon smiles. "I made you take your hands out of your pockets."

In the instant Killua glances down at his hands, Gon attacks again.

He's sure he almost gets him this time. He's sure Killua didn't know his last kick was coming, either. Killua may have spent years fighting in Heaven's Arena, but the Arena has rules. Judges. Gon has since learned the hard way what Hisoka meant when he refused to fight Gon there a second time: none of these apply in the real world. No one stops after a successful combination; no one waits for their opponent to recover from a knockdown. Phinks certainly didn't. 

Killua's other unreachable strengths - stealth and surprise - have no meaning here either.

Gon is rewarded with a slight widening of Killua's eyes. Killua catches his fist, but the impact pushes Killua's own knuckles back into his face hard enough to split his lip.

Gon follows it up relentlessly. He puts everything he's learned below decks on display: patterns so complex and devious it took him hours of deep thought to unpick them after the match. Nothing is off limits: Killua is forced to watch for throat and knee strikes and Gon is close enough to smell his sweat and hear his gasp when Gon nearly lands one of the former. Gon knows he didn't see it coming. He can see it in Killua's face.

So _why_ can't Gon land a hit? Why isn't anything working? _Why_ is Killua's palm or his shin or his forearm _always_ there to deflect?

Killua wipes his lip. "Gon--"

Fine. If he can't evade Killua's blocks to hit Killua, he'll hit Killua _through_ them.

From that point on every strike is at full force; Killua's shoes squeal against the metal surface of the pump platform as he digs down to keep himself from getting swept right over the side. Gon punches Killua's elbow right back against his body and his forearm into his stomach and he can hear Killua gag.

"Gon--"

Why can't Gon land a single hit? How much further ahead has Killua gotten? How far has Killua left him behind? Why is he so _weak_?

" _Gon_!"

Weak. Weak weak weak. Helpless. Useless. 

_WEAK--_

Killua's fists are lowered. His face is undefended. He's dropped his nen.

Nen? When were they using--

Killua is staring him in the eyes with an expression like cold iron.

Gon redirects his blow the moment before it lands there. It hits the platform and tears a hole in the steel as if he'd punched paper, peeled outward at the point of impact. The concussive force rips the nearest floats holding the platform aloft apart; they hiss air, lurch, and settle.

Killua swallows.

He shoves his hands back into his pockets, but not before Gon catches a glimpse of how leaden they are, how swollen and dark to the wrist. Even if he hadn't, Killua can't hide his shins - which are black and blue to the kneecap. Killua's sleeves look rust-mottled. Gon doesn't remember breaking Killua's skin that many times; it takes a second for the sting of Gon's own shredded knuckles to pierce the haze of his adrenaline. 

"Ahhh," Gon sighs. Flops into a sit. "You beat me. Why can't I hit you?"

"No, you won." 

"Hm?"

"If you'd kept going you would've started breaking my bones. I can't block if I can't use my limbs."

Gon is unconvinced. "Would've been different if you'd fought back."

"Yeah," Killua agrees.

In the end, all Gon found the answer to was the artificial puzzle they'd created. It's less satisfying than he'd expected. Gon has no interest in hollow victories. "So why can't I hit you?"

Killua explains that he has short-circuited the path to his own brain: that he can react, not only to normal stimulus, but to nen that has entered the range of his en, in an automated way as if he himself were a machine.

"We're all machines that run on electricity," Killua demurs in the face of Gon's confusion and awe, "I've skipped over the central processor."

As a result it is, quite literally, impossible for Gon to move faster than Killua can react. Killua doesn't have to anticipate anything. The complexity of Gon's attacks is meaningless. 

Gon can't even begin to imagine how Killua came up with it; how he'd go about putting it into action if he had. He is reminded of Killua's perfect balance during dodgeball - all of the variables Killua can take into account and adapt to at one time make Gon's own brain feel as if it's been short-circuited. Given space to strategize, Killua is everything Gon isn't.

Why Killua never figured that Gon would just punch through his defenses, though, Gon will never know.

"That's so cool." Gon says, means every word, and Killua blushes, bloody nose and all.

"I bet you've learned a ton about nen up here," Gon laments, "Leorio's too busy at the clinic and the Troupe won't show me anything."

Killua nods. "There was something I wanted to try, but-" He glances at his sleeves. "I think it'll have to wait until next week."

Killua can't swim very fast without his hands. Gon tows him to the ship and carries him on his back up over the side. So much dirty water gets into Gon's ripped knuckles that the ointment he tries to put on makes him yelp and squirm under Killua's judgemental gaze. Killua tells him about the abilities he's overheard during his surveillance while they bandage one another's wounds. Particularly from one of Prince Benjamin's guards, who speaks freely with his patron regarding powers neither have heard described or even mentioned by any of their teachers.

"Combination nen?" The term seems deceptively self-explanatory to Gon. "You mean you use lightning from one side and I throw Rock from the other?"

"No, idiot." Killua's ever-increasingly long legs are splayed atop Gon's on their small cot."Anybody can do that. Combination nen is when multiple people combine their auras for a single _hatsu_."

"How do you combine auras?" Gon has felt Killua's, many times. Smooth and deep and inviting. He's felt as if he could fall into it; it surprises him every time it sparks.

"I don't know." Killua frowns. "I think... we did something like it already. During dodgeball."

Gon isn't convinced - all he did was burn Killua's away. He felt that too.

"No, not _that_. You, me, and Hisoka."

"That?" Gon had thought they'd each had their own part to play. His had been to catch the ball. Hisoka's to smother its momentum. Killua's to... intermediate? Act as a buffer? An anchor? But how would he know how much force to apply and where? He wouldn't have been able to feel the impact directly.

"Hm." Gon reflects on those sensations: the warmth of Killua's back on his. Of Killua's palms on his thighs. Of Hisoka's weight, his presence encircling both of them.

Throughout it all the faintest undercurrent of something cool and sweet. Between where his energy had burned and Hisoka's had dampened; something he and Hisoka had pressed into seamlessly until it gave. Killua.

Gon wants to feel it again.

"--Didn't think he could teach it to the other guards, though. Even if they'd known each other for years." Killua is still talking. "He said it'd take people with unbreakable bonds. Like lovers. Or people who'd grown up together, like brothers."

"Are we brothers?" Gon asks. He's never had any.

Killua barely has to think about it. He shakes his head. "No."

Gon watches Killua worry his split lip intently.

"Are we lovers?" Killua asks, at last.

Gon closes the distance between them to answer Killua's question. 

He lowers Killua to the cot to remove all doubt.

Gon is roused from a sated doze some unknowable time later by a woman's raised voice. Already - or still - awake, Killua sits bolt upright so quickly Gon expects to have to pry him off the ceiling.

"Oh, no, they're not HERE YET," announces Bisky from somewhere just outside the door, "Come back in TEN MINUTES, I'm sure they're running a little late."

Gon is elbowed twice in the flurry that follows: once in the ear, once square in the jaw, as he and Killua strip sheets, re-wrap bandages, wipe their skin as clean as possible, and struggle into damp clothing. Killua kicks the bundle of sheet and soiled clothes behind the cot as far as he can, while Gon wrenches open the single porthole as far as it will go, putting his faith in the dullness of other people's senses as the night air does absolutely nothing to cut the obvious sweat, salt, blood, and musk for him.

Killua wears a mask of picturesque if flushed innocence; Gon looks guilty as sin when Bisky pushes the door open a crack. Hanzo follows, and at his observation that Bisky is pushing them too far in their training, both breathe a sigh of relief.

Of all the Hunters gathered, Kurapika seems most affected by Killua's revelation regarding the Fourth Prince's abilities. When grilled as to how Killua can be certain that Theta's version of events is accurate, or how he knows that she's telling the truth, Killua will only repeat that he has his own methods. Hanzo accepts this grimly; Kurapika interrogates him for every detail he's gleaned; Gon grits his teeth.

If Tserriednich is only capable of causing hallucinations, this can be countered. Both he and Theta were still affected by Melody. A Manipulator could use an ability on themselves or an ally first to pre-empt his attack and render it harmless.

It is the other possibility that casts a weighty shadow over the room: precognition. Not in the abstract form of a fortune - one that is immediate and direct.

It must be time-limited, Killua deduces. If it wasn't, Tserriednich would have outplayed the other Princes and won the succession long ago. He would never have let Theta so close to him in the first place. If being in _zetsu_ is one of its conditions, as she surmised, then it is likely limited to the between when his _zetsu_ began and when it ended.

Kurapika remains unconvinced. He walks through half a dozen other possibilities, alternate scenarios, and explanations before Gon cuts him off.

"Those don't matter." Gon can tell by the set of his shoulders and the curve of his lips that Killua has already found a solution. "We can deal with it if it's anything else."

That gives Killua the pause he requires. "I can find out," he says.

That Kurapika has taught Oito's manservant nen has been passed around well enough by now - Killua's heard it himself. He has no doubt that Prince Tserriednich has been informed. Killua will register as a threat. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage. On the one hand, Killua won't be permitted to enter his suite.

On the other, if Killua approaches him, the Prince will defend himself. 

"His guards will defend him," Kurapika insists.

"No they won't," Killua replies, with a kissably mischievous smile Gon hasn't seen in far too long.

Since he missed the last one, the King has demanded Tserriednich's presence at the next gala. Killua is already on the list of servers leant to support the function. His guards won't harass the waitstaff, even should they approach closely. Yet Tserriednich does know that Killua is a nen user.

"So? The gala will be packed with nen users. Why would he use his ability on you, in particular? If you attack him, his guards _will_ intervene, neutral territory or no. The Fourth Prince is an intelligent man."

"Oh, I know. And proud of it. We use both of those things against him."

A pro Hunter or a Queen-hired guard is an expected assassin. Too pedestrian - unworthy of Tserriednich's notice. A _clever_ ploy would be to send a servant - and Killua has been in his suite already under flimsy pretenses. If Tserriednich has the resources to match Killua's description to his family, all the better. This is the calibre of subterfuge Tserriednich is expecting - the kind his brothers and sisters would employ.

"I know how to approach somebody and make it look like I'm trying not to be seen, but be sure to let them see me, trust me." 

"So you watch him to see if he enters _zetsu_ when you get close." Kurapika's brow furrows. "How will you provoke him into using his ability? How will you know the difference between an illusion and precognition if you succeed?"

"First one's easy. The pride thing. I'm gonna dump a plate of food on him." Killua's smirk shows one tooth. Hanzo raises an eyebrow. Bisky covers a spit-chortle with a dainty glove. "See if he stops me, and how."

Kurapika shakes his head. "If what Theta said is correct, you'll envision having done so, but that will not in fact come to pass - how will you tell the difference between a vision of a future that has not occurred and one he imparts upon you as a hallucination?"

"I'll tell you." Killua holds up one finger. "Because you've told me all of your nen abilities. And you-" he points to Bisky "-Because I'm your student, and so have you."

With that, Killua rises to leave. In the wake of affront and confusion behind him, Bisky and Kurapika follow. Gon joins them without permission or protest.

To the other three in the hall, Killua describes Godspeed. This is no deeply guarded secret - he used it in the invasion of East Gorteau. Bisky already seems to know about it. But how it works, and what it means for their plan, is novel: that he will bypass his conscious mind and set his body on autopilot the moment Tserriednich enters _zetsu_. An illusion will target his higher order functions. Killua will move and perform simple actions autonomically - regardless of what his mind sees, Killua's body will act as programmed.

"So if he ends up with oysters on his lap, it's suggestion. If he doesn't, it isn't. It means he can either move faster than me, or he can see the future."

"That's an ability you're willing to show the other hundred nen users at the party?" Bisky asks.

"Of course not. I'll be using _in_."

"Ah." She nods. "I didn't know you'd progressed that far."

Kurapika stares down at his chain hand intently. At last, he says nothing. He returns to the others to inform them that Killua can do what he claims.

Bisky turns to her students. "What's his problem?"

"He's got personal stakes in the Fourth Prince," Killua tells her, "And he always tries to sort his shit out on his own, even he’s in ten feet over his head."

"But we're not going to let him," adds Gon. Killua's right: they agreed on that a long time ago.

"If you get yourselves killed doing it," Bisky cautions, "He's going to hate himself. Even more than he does already."

Having no other options, the Hunters agree to Killua's plan. In a week he'll report back with his findings; same place, same time. If something goes terribly wrong and he needs to flee Tier 1, he'll wait for Gon on the pump platform. 

At the end of their meeting, Bisky awaits them. Arms crossed, back to the door. "Just what were the two of you up to? Do you need instructions?" She doesn't have to gesture at Killua's shins or Gon's red-stained wrapped knuckles. "If you tell me 'it's obvious' you're in for the most uncomfortable conversation of your _lives_."

Gon confesses blithely while Killua finds interest in the floor.

Bisky is unimpressed. "Sparring? What made you think that was a good idea?" 

"You made us spar all the time," Gon protests.

"While _I_ was watching. When I could intervene. Look: when there's a considerable gap in the strength or the ability of both parties, the stronger or more experienced can control the situation. This makes it safe. Two beginners are unlikely to hurt each other badly; two masters know how not to. You two - strong but inexperienced - are the _worst_ possible combination."

Killua rolls his eyes. "I've been fighting since the day I could walk."

"You've been playing nen-less hide-and-go-seek since the day you could walk, you mean," Bisky snaps, "When it comes to nen battles against strong opponents, you're less experienced than a preteen from Bumfuck Village on Backwater Island."

" _Hey_ ," says Gon, after a few seconds.

"No. Sparring," Bisky declares in no uncertain terms. "Not unless I'm there." She sighs. "Which I will be if you want me to be. Otherwise - you can show each other the things you've learned. You can experiment. You can have _friendly_ matches. If you'd ever been to a science class, Gon, you'd have seen what happens to the inside of a hot dog if you put it on a live wire. If Killua gets past your guard you won't even be edible."

"Okay, okay, we won't," Gon agrees, and Killua wonders if he means it.

"Your parents should be the ones doing this," Bisky mutters as she massages her temples. " _Listen_ to me. It's not just that. It's - you're going to be adults in a few years. You're not children anymore.

"Everyone goes through this," she continues, "Even for people like you, even with your training, there's a gap between what you can do as a child and what you can do as an adult. One that will seem to have no rhyme or reason. And until you adjust to it, you won't be able to predict your own strength. It goes without saying that you could hurt the nenless without meaning to - you'll do a lot more damage than you expected to weak nen users, too. But more importantly, this makes you dangerous to each other. Listen to me, this time, or you're going to be in a world of pain you never wanted."

" _Osssu_ ," Gon agrees, for now. His thoughts are of the still-leaking hole on the pump platform.

Bisky interrogates him as to how his own training has progressed. He's had two weeks to bring the number of Paper attacks up to three. Gon can do five.

"Good. By next week, show me ten."

Still, Gon loses their race across the decks badly. This time Killua is not in the mood to gloat, and this time it's Killua that Bisky holds back for a lecture. They watch Gon slip soundlessly into murky water from the quarterdeck together, and without turning, Bisky asks, "I don't have to tell you how much stronger than you he is, do I."

Killua's response is noncommittal.

"We both saw what he did against Razor. Razor is in his prime. Gon was twelve. When we left Greed Island I caught up with Wing - he told me he felt as if he'd awakened a beast."

Killua's frown tightens; Bisky snorts softly. "Wing has a flair for the dramatic. Still, there's no comparison between how much force he can summon behind his _hatsu_ , and how much you can."

"Maybe, but I-"

"I know, I know: you can compensate in other ways. You can draw on your environment. He can't. And you seem to have finally figured out that there are many ways to win against a stronger opponent. Besides, he can't even begin to guess what it takes to accomplish something as complex or subtle as re-routing his own nerves. Or how much of a leap in difficulty it would be to manipulate someone else's."

Bisky pauses.

"But I can."

Neither looks at the other. At last, Killua's frown bares teeth. "I don't need a lecture, old b--"

"He'd destroy you," Bisky snaps. Killua recoils. "One clean hit - if he really meant it - and he would destroy you."

"So?" Killua grips the railing. "What do you expect me to do about it? It's not like I have the chance to practice against anybody like him _here_."

"You're right," says Bisky, and clasps him with a hand that covers his shoulder in its entirety, "That's exactly what we're going to fix."

Gon spends his week with friends.

Leorio hunches his way through Deck 5 at Gon's heels: flinching at gang fights, shrinking from backed up sewage, and ducking under uncovered ductwork. Gon waves at Cha-R enforcers to let them through. Sun-bin gives him a dumpling, which he chews while Leorio checks vitals and sutures wounds. Leorio waits while Gon crawls into the ballast system to free a trapped toddler. When Gon pops his head back out, grease-streaked and freshly UV-tanned, he finds Leorio flirting nervously with one of Ittoku's hired girls, and guides him away at a prudent jog. They haul an elderly man with a fractured hip up to the clinic together.

All this on a night of sleep he'd skipped to spend with Killua leads Gon to conk out early on Leorio's bunk, the textbook on anatomy Leorio had leant him open to page ten. When he awakens the blanket has been tucked up around his shoulders; Leorio is passed out at his desk, snoring soundly in front of a paused video entitled XXXOTIC BUSTY KAKIN BABES.

Gon makes it back down to Tier 5 in time for the weekly turf brawl between the Cha-R and Xi-Yu at the central stairwell. Nobody present this time around is a nen user of much note, though one incorporates a flip kick at an angle Gon didn't think was possible for a primate. He has to try it himself; smacking his ankle on the bulkhead and tumbling sidelong into fighters on both sides keeps him from pulling his groin _too_ badly. He walks - then drinks - it off at the Cha-R offices. Learns how to take bribes, and how much he should ask for each service, so that he can man the door while Ittoku meets with their patron.

Feitan and Machi pass by. Feitan calls Gon something he doesn't understand. Sun-bin laughs, but swears he won't tell Gon what he said for love or money.

The Troupe no longer hounds him out of their meeting places. Their erstwhile hideout - such as it is - is a storage area for non-perishable, non-recyclable waste. On a normal journey, this kind of refuse would be lifted off of the Black Whale at the next port by cargo crane; since there is no next port, it will like as not be dumped over the side as soon as the room is full. Perhaps they assume that Hisoka won't come here - Gon can't say one way or another if they're right or wrong.

Gon enjoys the card games; they ask him what Greed Island was all about, and how he beat it. About what down in the NGL. He tells them what he feels like telling them. Once, Chrollo tells him about Meteor City for the better part of an hour, but Gon doesn't really get it. 

Gon never loses sight of what he's here for. In return, he asks how to defeat an opponent who is too fast for him.

"Didn't you say you had a mentor," asks Phinks, the first to cave.

"Yeah, but Killua's hogging her right now," Gon informs him, "How do I beat somebody who can react to anything I do?"

Phinks thinks about it. "You stay one step ahead of 'em. Force them into a corner. Use terrain to your advantage."

"I know all _that_."

"Then why are you asking?" Phinks glowers. "If you can't do that, I don't know - sneak up on 'em."

"I _can't_ ," Gon pleads, "If you were fighting somebody faster than you, what would you do?"

Phinks glances at the rest of the Troupe for help. When none is forthcoming, he continues, "Fastest person I know is Feitan, I guess. I would, uh, line up one good hit and clobber him. Go on the defense until then."

"Yes, would work." Feitan's eyes crinkle. "You always outsmarting me."

"Is he?" Shizuku blinks.

"What he means is that he would make his opponent take actions that he can predict," Machi translates, "That's how he would 'line up' a hit. And that he would try to end the fight in one hit, because the longer it went on, the more of a disadvantage he'd be at. Even if you failed to put them down, you might cripple them and slow them down, that way."

"Good theory." Feitan remains nonplussed. "Real fight different. Hard to beat fast, very hard. Speed is good. Show you: no practice, no win."

The Troupe is accustomed to Feitan's mannerisms; to what he says versus what he means to say: they know that he meant broadly, and in general. They do not expect Gon to bounce to his feet with a smile and accept Feitan's 'offer' to practice. 

Nevertheless, they find it very amusing.

Even moreso when Gon pesters him into making good on it. 

This isn't sparring with Killua, so it isn't against Bisky's rules. And besides: there are plenty of highly experienced nen users present to make sure things don't get too carried away, just like she would have. 

It isn't the same, either. Gon can follow Feitan's movements with his eyes - the problem is that he can't move fast enough to respond to them. Killua almost seemed to vanish. To be in one place, then another. That's impossible, of course - Killua can't teleport, at least not that he's told Gon - so Gon simply needs to make his eyes faster for Killua, too. With Feitan, he begins to explore what Phinks told him: to lay traps to tempt Feitan into moving in predictable patterns, at the end of which Gon's fist awaits him.

More often than not, however, his face finds the hilt of Feitan's umbrella-sword first.

After the first few bouts on the first day, their sparring begins to lose its entertainment value for most of the Troupe. They filter out on business and in when they feel like it. The smattering of advice Gon receives from the gallery grows sparser, as does Feitan's scolding.

Kalluto watches every round.

At first, Gon thinks Killua's younger brother wants to learn how to fight Feitan too. Kalluto is slim and slight even for a 12-year-old, so doubtless has a lot of room for improvement when it comes to hand-to-hand combat. Gon is rebuffed when he invites him to try. 

It's Machi who suggests an alternative explanation after the second day of Kalluto's riveted presence. 

"I think he's got a crush on someone."

"Oh." Well, that makes things a whole lot simpler. When Machi's finished patching up the hole Feitan sliced in his bicep, Gon collects his sweat-damp shirt over his shoulder and makes his approach.

"Kalluto, right?"

Kalluto does not look up from the paper art he is trimming. It forms the familiar shape of Feitan, stabbing a spiky-haired figure through the heart. "Good guess."

Gon laughs. He's had more than two years of experience with boys now; Killua is just as sarcastic, at times. "Do you want to go to the gym?"

Kalluto continues his work; his face scrunches. "Why would I want to do that?"

Killua likes to train together because it gives him an excuse to see and touch Gon's body, and vice versa. Maybe Kalluto is too young for that yet. Too shy. Maybe he'd like to play games together. To curl up with Gon while they sleep, like Killua used to do.

Time to cast and see where it lands. "Have you been to the amusement park on Tier 3?"

"No." Sn-snip snip snip snip. Kalluto keeps cutting.

Gon is sure he saw a flash of interest, however. He tugs the line. "Why not?"

"I'm not allowed to go anywhere alone and Illumi won't take me."

"I'll take you." When Kalluto sets the scissors down, Gon knows he has him landed. "When do you want to go?"

Gon stops by his berth before the date. He takes a shower. Uses Leorio's fancy black-jarred soaps that promise to make a man supple, yet rugged. Killua isn't that fussy; at least, he's learned not to be, after swamps and weeks spent in the woods with Bisky and now bilge water. Kalluto seems prim.

Much to Gon's lament, he still doesn't need Leorio's razor. The last time he touched Killua's cheek, he felt stubble.

Gon tries on the suit with the embroidered H he was issued as one of the pro Hunters formally hired to come aboard the Black Whale. It's tight.

Gon is on minute thirty-five of trying to tie his tie when Leorio comes in.

"You're not going to crawl through the pipes in that, are you?" he asks.

"No," Gon tells him, winding the ends around each other, "I've got a date."

It takes Leorio a few seconds to respond. "Well," he mutters at last, "At least she probably won't crush your windpipe." He slumps onto the bed, defeated. "Do you have any idea how long it's been since I've been on a date?"

"You shouldn't date. You're in med school."

"I mean, before that. Too broke. Girls want a guy with money."

"Really? Huh. But I don't have any money." Gon's sure he's got it this time. "Maybe it's because you're desperate." Leorio's approach to pursuing women is like sprinting at a flock of birds. "Put yourself out there and see what comes your way. Don't chase until somebody shows interest."

Leorio squints. "Did you just give me dating advice?"

Gon nods. "You need it."

"Listen, kid: grown up women are a little different. You can't just give them candy and tell them you'll be their forever friend."

"Of course. With younger women you should try to impress them. With older women you should ask about their interests."

"What would you know about older--"

"Then again, it depends on the person. That's why you should make sure you talk to her first. Somewhere public, and casual, and fun, so there are no hard feelings if it doesn't work out."

"Agh, alright alright, Casa Nova Junior. Here - let me help you with that. You shouldn't be wearing a tie on a casual date anyway, you look like your dad dressed you. Well not _your_ dad. Somebody's dad with a fixed address. And why are you wearing your _uniform_? Here, I've got something that might fit."

Leorio has a half-dozen suits; some are too small and tight for him and Gon's chest and shoulders are broader than they used to be. The shirts don't fit too badly if Gon rolls up the sleeves. Gon folds them over the rolled up sleeves of the jacket, and pops his collar, just like Sun-bin does.

Leorio eyes him up flatly. "Do you want me to get you the Cha-R colours?"

"That would be a really bad idea." Gon can't believe how naive Leorio is sometimes. "Tier 3 is Hei-Ly territory."

"I- yep, silly me. That's what we Hunters are here for: respecting the underworld. Go get 'em, tiger."

Gon doesn't know what Leorio's problem is - he's the one who suggested Gon dress down in the first place. Kalluto, who Gon picks up by the central stairs, seems to like it.

Kalluto has brushed his hair and changed his obi. It looks nice. Gon tells him as much. Killua likes it when Gon notices his new outfits, too.

Decks 4 and 5 have their own amusement centers, after a fashion: Deck 4's consists of an arcade with 15-year-old games, over half of which have broken buttons. Deck 5's contained the pool table now residing in the Cha-R's headquarters, a shuffle board with no powder, and a single P'ohngh console long since dismantled to its component parts.

Deck 3's is situated just outside the mall's food court, bi-level, and staffed. Gon escorts Kalluto to the carnival booths first: in lieu of stuffed animals, Gon provides a supper of hot dogs by smashing a weighted hammer right through the pedestal meant to receive it and measure the force of its impact. An ornery teenager comes along moments later with a broom and dustbin, muttering 'I'm so sick of you freaks,' before distributing their prize. Kalluto wins cotton candy for dessert by throwing three darts in exactly the same location, so hard that each splits.

While they eat, Gon asks Kalluto why Illumi wouldn't take him here.

"He says he doesn't like the crowds," Kalluto replies, and dabs mustard off his cheek delicately, "But really, it makes him sad."

"Why?" Gon cocks his head.

Kalluto cocks his right back. "Hisoka, obviously."

"Hisoka?"

"They were dating for like two years. He was going to be my brother-in-law and everything."

"Oh." Gon feels annoyed and foolish all at once. "He never mentioned it." Neither had Killua, for that matter. "I'm sorry."

"He did it to himself." Kalluto shrugs. Unwinds his paper cone, while Gon eats. "Let's go do something fun."

Kalluto's definition of fun involves the arcade. None of the action or racing games that Killua tried to show Gon how to play; rather, ones where the object seems to be to hit colored plastic with a stick in time with a beat. Gon has to agree: this is a lot more fun. He manages a decent enough showing at Iron Drummer by the time Kalluto gets distracted by a steel platform and a voice that implores them to show it 'what they've got'.

"Huh," says Kalluto, as he steps lightly up onto his square, "I haven't seen one of these in years. I heard they were still popular in Kakin."

"What is it?" Gon asks, perplexed by the lack of a controller.

"Jive Jive Insurgency. Milluki got dad to buy him one. Never played it. You step on the buttons."

After flailing for the arrows for a few songs, Gon feels like he gets it. It's like dancing. After ten he keeps pace with Kalluto. 

Until Kalluto asks him to step down and hold his sandals. Kalluto tucks in his sleeves. He then taps a few buttons; the screen floods with a torrent of arrows that makes Gon's head spin. Kalluto's feet are a blur that drifts seamlessly from one square to the next. The console announcer goes wild; a modest crowd begins to gather behind them. Gon whistles and claps. By the third song - without a break - the rest of the arcade is watching. 

Gon hands Kalluto his sandals back when he's finished. "That was amazing!"

"Not really. I get all of my brothers' hand-me-downs." Kalluto takes Gon's proferred hand to step down; several strands of his bangs are plastered to his face.

"There's no way they're better than you. That was so cool."

"No," says Kalluto, with a slightly sheepish smile, "They're probably not."

They try some of the other games before Gon finds one that absorbs him - bouncing balls into rings is too easy, and Kalluto is as terrible a driver in Venti Circuit as Gon is. They end up finding ramps off of which to plunge their imaginary racers to ever grislier deaths rather than gunning for the podium with laser focus like Killua would.

When Kalluto shows him a game where he must touch flashing lights as they appear on the screen, it reminds Gon of using _gyo_ on command for Bisky. Of blocking her _ko_ -fortified fists as fast as she could deliver them. Kalluto cranks up the difficulty level to a speed he struggles with, then to one that leaves him mesmerized.

"This is impossible," Gon groans, "You can't watch everywhere at once."

"You're not actually watching the squares are you?"

It _is_ impossible to do that, Kalluto tells him. An electronic console doesn't have tells: he should unfocus his eyes so that he can take the entire grid in, and let his hands react. "Don't think. Thinking slows you down."

Gon improves; not nearly so well as Kalluto, however, and when he slumps in frustration, Kalluto laughs. 

"Let me show you a secret." He covers Gon's head and the console with one long sleeve. "Now try."

The game becomes inexplicably easier; Kalluto informs him that everyone reacts a lot faster to lights in the darkness than they do in daylight. 

Kalluto has dozens of other tips for ensuring the swiftest possible strike; for handling a situation in which he's found himself surrounded. In his line of work he is often alone, and - as his father always told him - he who moves first is usually he who moves last.

When Kalluto was a child they made a game of it.

Kalluto is still a child, Gon reflects, shoulder-to-shoulder with him in a darkened movie theater an hour later. It feels like an eternity since a casual brush of fingers on forearm between him and Killua could have been so innocent. Since there would have been nothing more than sardonic mockery of the romantic subplot on Killua's part, or a scuffle over popcorn: no sidelong glances. No tears.

These invasive thoughts are distracting; Gon couldn't say what the film's resolution was to save his own life. All he knows is that Kalluto smells very nice, and that he's glad he travels to Tier 1 tomorrow.

"That was really dumb," is Kalluto's review.

Two armed men in Hei-Ly yellow await them in the exit passageway.

One carries a sheaf of throwing knives; the other a handgun. Each has a shimmer of contained aura - no more than Zushi could bring to bear the last time Gon met him.

"Well if it isn't the Cha-R's--" the knife-thrower uses the same word Feitan did, "Is that your girlfriend?"

Good: nen users means Bisky's rules don't apply. "Kalluto's a boy."

"That's a boy?" The handgun user doesn't reach for it; a decoy if Gon's ever seen one. "Little young to be into crossdressers, aren't you?"

"Only one way to be sure." The other draws two knives the moment Gon's posture shifts. In the blink of an eye six more appear between his fingers. No, twelve - he's doubled them. No, more: Gon snaps into _gyo_. A manipulator, not a conjurer. He really is copying them. Gon can make out the thin threads of his _hatsu_ connecting one to the other.

"Don't bother." Kalluto takes Gon's sleeve. Turns to walk away. He's right, Gon could blast them both halfway through the hull with little effort, but--

But-- "Wait a minute. Please? There's something I want to try."

Gon's first ball of Paper is nothing more than a feint to draw out his opponent's attack; he falls for it, and countless nen-sharp knives fly at Gon from every possible direction. He's used the walls and floor to ricochet them at unpredictable angles. They break into pieces mid-flight; multiply endlessly.

It's perfect.

The other three balls of Paper Gon unleashed with the same fist smash all of the overhead lights. He is backlit by the crack between the doors of the theatre.

In that beam, in which he is centered, all of the knives glitter.

Gon fortifies two fingers on both hands with ko, and plays a game.

Every knife he touches shatters. Those he doesn't hardly scratch; by the third volley Gon keeps every single one from reaching him except the ones out of reach too near the floor. Good to know; he needs faster feet.

Gon can't tell if the Hei-Ly footsoldier is enraged or terrified when he starts to run out of knives. His expression could read either way. He rushes in behind the final flight; Gon adds him to the game. Ducks his kick, reaches out, and tags him in the chest.

Gon expects him to be out of the game. He does not expect the knife-thrower to crumple to the ground on impact, ribs shattered and coughing up blood from where those fragments have punctured his lungs.

Where was his _ken_? How has nobody ever taught him to defend himself?

Kalluto applauds.

The man with the handgun looks between all three of them, clutching a papercut at the side of his neck, and bolts headlong in the opposite direction. Not long after he disappears from view there is a crunch, a thud, and a bloodcurdling scream from the food court.

Gon is grateful that none of the medics who arrive on scene seem to know him. When they have the knife-thrower stabilized, he slips away, past a headless corpse in a sea of soggy red and hurriedly discarded Macked O'Nells wrappers.

At the central stairwell, Kalluto kisses him on the cheek and thanks him for a good time.


	4. Intimacy x and x Codependence - Part 3: Intimacy | Combination Nen (4 September 2001)

Mizai is at the door of the cabin Gon shares with Leorio the next morning, so Gon starts his crawl through the ship's ductwork a few hundred meters early. The 'just a few questions' he has for Gon aren't ones Gon is particularly interested in answering - not when he has more important things to do.

Killua will be waiting.

Gon first checks the pump platform. If something's gone awry, that's where Killua will be, and Gon is relieved when he isn't. The hole in the platform is ringed in by a chest-high barrier strung with yellow caution tape; the pressurized vessels below all have new inspection tags on them. 

In the dim evening light Killua's submerged form shimmers like a decorative carp beneath the murky water. Perched on the edge, Gon plucks him out.

Kalluto is right: in the dark, it is easier to see the flash of Killua's white teeth in the instant before he yanks Gon down with him. Killua's laughter is silenced just as abruptly when Gon dunks him in retribution.

They both spend the next few seconds spitting up whatever they swallowed.

When they climb back up, Gon peels out of his sopping clothes and spreads them out on the deck. Killua asks him what he's doing - they're just going to get wet again when they swim back, idiot. Gon informs him that they're for him: the platform is hard metal with slip-resistant ridges, and Killua's back is going to look like he slept with cheese grater otherwise.

Gon predicts that Killua will balk endearingly, which does turn out to be true. Killua insists that in no uncertain terms is he going to do it on Gon's gross wet shirt, or covered in disgusting month-old grey water, or out here where someone could see them, none of which do.

It isn't that bad; in fact, it's a lot of fun, and the stars when they come out make Killua's pale skin look like it's glowing. His bruises have faded much faster than they usually do; Gon wonders what Killua thinks of Bisky's 'useless' power now.

"Huh." Killua gazes up at those stars afterward, heels resting on Gon's bare chest. He looks like he had a lot more fun, too. "They're as bright as they were on Whale Island. No light pollution out here, I guess."

"They're brighter." Though the constellations are different.

"Shame they're going to close the dome soon." Killua sits up suddenly, and Gon huffs air out from his squashed lungs. "You know what that means."

"What?" Gon croaks.

"This is our last chance to see over the side." Without warning, the dirty cheater kips to his feet and bolts along the outflow pipes. "Race you!"

Gon scrambles after him. Catches up to him when he starts to climb, and leaps past him in a single bound. Killua might be faster, but Gon can jump higher, and knows the structure and the ductwork inside and out. They reach the rim in a dead heat.

The ocean stretches out endlessly. Past where even Gon's eyes can see. From so high up above, the waves look like flat patterns on sleek black fabric. Wind whips across the cloudless sky. Carries with it salt, damp, and absolutely nothing else. 

It really is the edge of the world. 

They stroll around the entire ship. Gon wonders if they'd survive sliding all the way down the side into the ocean, and how much fun it would be if they did; Killua peers down from the bow into the Whale's bright maw where the tiny ant-like passengers on Tier 3 go about their lives. Gon looks to see what he's staring at, and nearly loses his balance. Killua holds his hand the rest of the way.

They're all the way back to the pump platform by the time Gon thinks to ask Killua why he came out here in the first place.

"Did everything go okay?"

"Obviously." Killua's eyes flick upward. 

"Then why are you here?" Gon is stumped.

"To _practice_. Remember? Combination nen."

"Don't get mad at me. You forgot too."

"No I _didn't_. You - you just. You _know_."

Gon doesn't, but Killua seems to think he should, so he changes the subject. "We can do it now." Killua figured it out in a few minutes during the dodgeball game; it can't take Gon more than the hour or two they have left. "We just put our auras together?"

"Here." Killua gestures for him to sit. "I think I remember. We were touching, and..."

They were. Back-to-back. Gon recalls the sensations perfectly: Killua braced him. Stabilized him. And yet cushioned the impact. Something hard enough to lean on, soft enough to lean into. Gon's own smooth aura slides across the surface of Killua's cool, placid, faintly sweet undertone the moment Killua lays a hand on his thigh again.

"Just like that."

This is easy, it's nice, it's--

"Okay. Now I'm going to send some of mine back to you. You ready?"

What? Gon nods.

That undertone reverses directions and it--

 _SEARS_ across his senses, it's awful, it's horrible, no no _no_ , it's--

Gone. Gon is flat on his back and so is Killua. The echoes of Gon's cry of protest fade into the dark sky.

Killua coughs. There's a bootprint in the center of his chest. He rises to his elbows while Gon trembles; Gon feels raw on the inside. "You said you were _ready_."

"You never said it felt like that." 

"I never said it felt _good_."

Cautiously, Killua touches Gon's foot on the second try. Gon sets his teeth this time. Almost quells the burning visceral rejection of his invasive presence by virtue of a bloody lip. 

Killua removes his hand before Gon can kick it away.

On the eighth try Gon manages to hold back for a full second.

By the eighteenth, Killua's aura finally reaches his own aura nodes before they all snap shut. By the twenty-eighth, Gon is dripping sweat from every pore.

"We can pick this up again later." Killua's brows are tight with unspoken worry.

Gon shakes his head. "Why is it like this," he pants. 

Killua folds his legs up. Offers his theory. "Our bodies are designed to repel and destroy anything foreign, right?"

"They are?"

Killua snorts. "Of course they are. How do you think we recover from diseases? Ask Leorio: this is true for other human cells too. Even a fetus has to fight its mother's immune system or she'll expel it."

Gon thinks of the cells he must leave in Killua's mouth after they kiss, and vice versa. He never imagined that he was killing them.

"If auras are produced by every living organism, they've gotta be the same. Anything non-self is presumed hostile."

This new knowledge doesn't help. Does it mean he's supposed to defend himself? Isn't that counter-productive? Gon tries once, and it hurts Killua badly enough for him to shudder. 

It's repulsive. What was once light and sweet is heavy and sickening. Gon is being smothered, suffocated, drowned in honey and when it seeps inside it _changes_ things that don't change back.

Killua pats his back when Gon heaves his supper over the side of the platform.

"What's it like?" Gon asks, while he wipes his mouth.

"You know how your aura feels?" Gon doesn't, really. "Like that but on the inside. Thought you were going to rip me apart the first time." Killua snorts wryly. "I knew you wouldn't, though. I'm not going to hurt you, either."

"So you felt Hisoka on the inside?"

" _Hey_." Killua pulls a face that is at once furious and mortified. "Don't make it sound _weird_."

"You didn't?"

Killua looks at the water. "Yeah... I guess. Sure. You'll be able to do the same thing once you figure it out."

"No," Gon reiterates, "It has to be you."

Gon knows this as well as he knows the way his knees will bend when he sits and the colour of the back of his eyelids. Killua knows that Gon won't break him, even though he could. But what if he did? Gon doesn't know that Killua won't warp him into something he doesn't recognize. Doesn't want to be.

Because he could.

Gon closes his eyes. The moonlight shines through them.

Ten miles away from another human soul near the summit of Whale Island's tallest mountain he finds solace. He is not alone: birds sing, insects hum, lizards click, squirrels rustle through the grass, and the wind whistles through the leaves. In ten square feet around him there live a hundred other lives. They know nothing of corrupting, oppressive intimacy.

Channels between scales of bark rasp bare feet. The scents of pine, salt, and sun-baked earth. In his ears the quiet symphony of this communal solitude.

The heat and light of the sun along his limbs.

Warm and pleasant and comfortable and will surely burn him if he basks in it too long, as surely as it will carve long lines in the folds of his face just as it has the other fishermen of Whale Island. The longer he lays in it, the darker his skin becomes, the more likely something will change inside of him that will someday kill him.

It is the most natural thing in the world. The waves that grind the island's steep jagged young shores down into gravel-strewn beaches over the aeons; the first reflexive gasp of diving into the autumn sea, all the riches it offers, adjusting to the chill, knowing that if he lingers too long this will kill him too.

Cherry red toes soaked in lukewarm water after a romp in the snow; the first signs of frostbite.

The way the winter forest swallows sound. 

Gon takes Killua's palm in his and relents to a force older than memory.

This will change him. It is changing him. It oozes through his aura nodes as oil through pores and thrums under the surface. 

Gon's mouth tastes like metal. His _en_ unfolds until it encompasses the platform, the water, the hull of the inner ship and all of its unseen places for the hidden and to hide. It is fragile, brittle; honed to a too-sharp edge, capable of piercing anything it touches, flaking every time it cuts. Beneath its ominous surface it is placid, inviting, opaque, and so deep that if he drowned in it, he would sink forever.

"Gon." Killua squeezes his hand. "You okay?"

"It's you, Killua." Gon smiles.

Killua smiles back.

Gon wakes up on the Tier 1 infirmary cot. A scratchy fire blanket has been tucked around his shoulders. His clothing has been hung from an IV stand to dry. As has Killua's. 

Killua is seated at the end of the cot and glances up from whatever he's scribbling on the back of a packing slip for medical supplies when Gon stirs. He must have carried Gon here. Gon yawns; his limbs feel heavy. "What happened?"

"You passed out." Killua spins the pen between his thumb and forefinger. "Don't worry - I'd go down for hours after a training session when I was a kid. You'll be fine."

"We did it."

"Yep. And now comes the hard part: figuring out how and when to use it."

"Why not whenever we want?" Two heads are always better than one. Aren't they?

Killua folds his arms before he delivers his lecture: they need to know what the effects are. How long they can do it. What they can do. Whether it's additive, or synergistic, or antagonistic, or potentiated, or exponential.

Gon doesn't know what any of those words mean.

"That's what I thought," says Killua, and holds up his paper. Gon smiles wanly with an inward cringe: math equations. "Say you're a six and I'm a seven. Six plus seven is thirteen, right? But what if when we combine we're more like ten? That's more than six or seven, but less than thirteen. Or maybe we're more like twenty? That's synergistic."

"Why am I six?"

"Fine, you can be seven if you want, I'm just trying to make a point."

"I can't use less lightning than you. I can't use it at all."

"Huh." Killua ponders that. Chews on his pen tip; Gon wonders if they have lollipops on Tier 1. If one would survive the trip from Tier 3, if they don't. "You think the difference is a qualitative one, not a quantitative one?"

Gon doesn't know what that means either.

"It's the difference between one chocolate robot and two chocolate robots, and a chocolate robot and an apple."

"Apples aren't good for your teeth, Killua. That's a myth."

"Oh _come on_. Look." Killua starts writing again. "We're Killua and Gon. You can't argue with that, can you?"

Gon cannot.

"Instead of becoming Killua plus Gon, when we use combination nen, we become Killugon. That's qualitative. But what is Killugon? Is it half of Killua plus Gon? Or is it Killua plus Gon squared?"

This doesn't make anything any clearer.

"You _think_?"

This time, at the sound of Bisky's warning, Gon calls her inside. She's seen both of them in their underwear before; they haven't done anything Killua would find embarrassing in the room. 

This does not prevent her from scolding them. "I give you time alone together, and _this_ is what you're up to? Math problems?" She snaps up the packing slip. Killua tries to snatch it back.

Bisky peers skeptically over the paper at Gon. "I suppose he is taller than you."

"Get _out_ of here," Killua growls; Bisky blocks his shove one-handed. "We need to change."

Killua has thought to bring them outfits so they don't have to attend the Hunter meeting in wet clothes. Gon wishes there was a mirror so that he could see what he looks like in Killua's white crewneck. Killua in his own black turtleneck looks fit to burst it at the seams. There must not be any stores on Tier 1 either.

Killua has executed the plan flawlessly. Not only do they have confirmation of the nature of the Fourth Prince's ability, they have it without any suspicion aroused. Killua describes the experiments he performed: how he approached from different paths of different lengths to see when and how Tserriednich would react, and what each confirmed.

Hanzo clasps Killua's shoulders gravely. "I'm proud of you," he says.

"I don't give a shit." Killua shrugs him off.

They now know four things: 1) Tserriednich is precognitive, 2) that this precognition is short-lived - more than a few seconds but less than a minute, 3) that Tserriednich must use _zetsu_ to use his ability, and 4) that he closes his eyes before he enters _zetsu_.

"If the path I chose was gonna take me more than a minute or so to reach him, he didn't do anything," Killua confirms. "Besides, if he could see into the future indefinitely, I'm pretty sure he would've won this thing a while ago."

"Then that's what we must do: utilize an ability with a delayed effect. One with a lag time that exceeds the limits of his foresight," Kurapika suggests.

Gon doesn't follow. "Won't he still know a minute before the effect goes off?"

"Yeah," Killua agrees, "There's no guarantee. We don't know if that's the only ability he has, either. Maybe we fight fire with fire. Use his ability against him."

"No, the effects of mine are immediate. We would need a similar ability with a time delay."

Killua has told Gon, privately, what else he's seen Kurapika do. "Does that even exist?"

"It exists. A similar power was used on Neon. She had no idea it had happened at the time - not until days afterward." Kurapika sighs softly, two fingers pressed to his temples. "Not that that is in any way useful to us. The person with it wouldn't help us under any condition, and he's a thousand miles away from here, besides."

"Who?" Gon asks.

"He means Chrollo," says Killua.

Within the space of less than a heartbeat, Killua realizes his profound tactical error. Yet even had he used Godspeed to tackle Gon in the aftermath, long before Gon could form any word or gesture, he would not have had enough time to prevent Gon's gaze from turning to him, meaningfully. Or to prevent Kurapika from seeing it.

Kurapika draws in a breath. "Pardon me," he mutters absently, and leaves the room.

Metal slams against metal in the silence that follows.

Blood drips from the knuckles of Kurapika's right hand when he returns. "I'm not angry," he says, eyes blazing scarlet, "Just disappointed."

Chastened, Gon and Killua submit to Kurapika's interrogation. Bereft of time to strategize, Killua can't ensure that he and Gon will tell the same story, so he disregards his instinct to salvage the situation by telling Kurapika that the Troupe's presence was something they'd recently discovered. They tell him the truth instead: that Gon ran into them weeks ago and, to Killua and Kurapika's mutual surprise, that he has been meeting with them ever since.

"Leorio is letting you do this?" The inquiry is delivered flat.

"Leorio doesn't know."

"So you decided on your own to infiltrate the Phantom Troupe? I will admit that it's bold, but it's much too dangerous. And hardly of use to us, even if we now understand their motivations for undertaking the voyage."

But Gon is already smiling. Killua is already resting his chin in his hand. 

"You know Asambhava, right?" Killua asks.

"I've read her treatises On Peace and Espionage in their entirety," Kurapika responds. Then nods. "The enemy of my enemy..."

"Probably thinks being able to see into the future would be pretty sick, too."

It takes Gon and Killua twenty minutes and five more packing slips to concoct their scheme. They ask for privacy; Bisky corrals a curious Hanzo away while Melody offers to take Kurapika for a stroll. They explain Operation Book Club to the assembled Hunters through diagrams.

Kurapika has known them long enough not to be wholly incredulous. "You _truly_ believe this will work?"

"Depends what Chrollo's conditions are," Killua admits, "But yeah. So long as we've got their buy-in."

"That won't be a problem." The red in Kurapika's eyes hasn't faded since they began. "I know exactly where Hisoka is."

By the time they've hammered out all of the details and assigned the roles, they have very little left to train with Bisky. Gon has exceeded her request for ten Paper by half again as many, and can fire them off with less than a second in between. Next week she wants twice that twice as fast. And at least two Scissors back-to-back.

After he's gone, Bisky matches the new speed of Gon's attacks on Killua.

Killua has plans to execute; Bisky has other engagements; Gon does not notice the small slice of damp paper that flutters out of his clothing when he redons it.

As such, he is unprepared for the Phantom Troupe to be assembled in its present entirety when he arrives at their storehouse on Tier 5. 

Chrollo does not mince words: "We accept."

So Gon doesn't either. "When do we start?"

"As soon as you bring us your hostage."

On his way back up to Tier 3, Gon mulls what he should tell the others. Whether there is a spy in their midst, or a nen ability none of them noticed. He'll tell Killua, he decides. The next chance they're alone together. Kurapika will overreact; if Killua overreacts Gon can handle him. If it's the latter they can use _gyo_. Puzzle it out together. The former doesn't bear consideration.

Gon tells Leorio where Leorio will be spending the next day or so at the end of his rounds on Tier 5. Gon also tells him not to worry, that Kurapika agreed to everything and that the Troupe has already proven that they're completely reliable where the life of their leader is concerned.

"Do I get a choice?" Leorio asks quietly.

"I didn't think you'd say no," Gon admits, chagrined.

"I'm not." Leorio squares his shoulders. "This is it, right? The last one. He lays his clan to rest. Then he's done with this... this shit."

"Yep!" Gon says, pats him firmly on the shoulder, and leads the way.

The Spiders are waiting. "I know him," Feitan confirms, "Doctor. Hunter. One of only on Tier 5."

"So do I," says Chrollo, "He is who they said he was."

"More friends of the chain asshole?" Phinks falls in behind Gon and Leorio both.

"Yes."

Gon is unmoved. "You have the copies?" 

Chrollo nods.

"Do I take you first?"

"No need. I have my own methods. Take Illumi, and I will meet you on Tier 1."

Illumi rises wordlessly from where he'd been combing Kalluto's hair to comply.


	5. Intimacy x and x Codependence - Part 4: Cooperation | The Nen Heist (4-6 September 2001)

**Step 1/8: Acquire The Books - September 5th 10:30-10:57 AM**

_"So from what we know from Hisoka and his Heaven's Arena fight, Chrollo uses a book to steal abilities," Killua explains, "We need copies of that book."_

_Hanzo raises his hand. "Heaven's Arena matches are Pay-Per-View only in Jappon. I haven't seen that one."_

_"You don't need to. He uses a book. That's all you need to know."_

_"How big is it?"_

_"It's - it's_ book-sized _. Come on."_

_"Is it conspicuous? Concealable? Unique? You still have a lot to learn about the Shadow Art, Killua."_

_"It_ doesn't matter _. All that matters is that it'll fit on a scanner."_

_"That's a problem," Bisky hums, "I have seen one since I got on board."_

_Gon cuts in: "There's a full-service Kankos on Deck 3."_

"Tempest, right?" A nervous polo-clad Kankos employee leans over the desk. "From Last Phantasia."

Chrollo shuts the lid of the multi-function printer, mouth tight. 

"Your collar's _perfect_."

The scanner's light creaks along the cover, set spine down.

"I, uh, have the figure. You want to see?"

_Melody has her own concerns. "I don't think Chrollo will let us scan pages full of stolen abilities, will he?"_

_"No,_ obviously _. We don't want him to. We'll provide the content. All we need is the covers."_

_"How thick is the book? That's a lot of material to fake."_

_"We're not going to _write_ it. Just print off the sappiest self-help bullshit we can find."_

_"Self-help..." Kurapika is the first to put the bare bones of Gon and Killua's plan together. "You're going to use Prince Taithon. What makes you think she'll be amenable to helping us?"_

_Killua glances at Gon. Gon nods. Killua continues. "She won't be. That's why we need a Manipulator."_

_"She is under constant surveillance and escort by Hunters, as well as her own guards." Kurapika frowns. "You mean to tell me you know a Manipulator whose ability can't be detected by gyo?"_

_"Unfortunately, yeah. I sure do."_

**Step 2/8: Acquire The Players - September 5th 3:15-6:20 PM**

"I owe you an apology," says Illumi, from where he sits on Gon's back, legs around Gon's waist and arms over his shoulders like the straps of a backpack.

"Apologize to Killua," Gon grunts, his own legs on either side of the disposal shaft that will take them past Tier 2. He's learned from gravity-enhanced experience that his hand and footholds have to be precise, and this is faster than coaching Illumi the whole way up. _Besides_ , Killua had said, _We don't want him to be able to do it himself._

"You're not his friend, are you." It isn't inflected like a question - at least Gon thinks it isn't, and Illumi's head is pressed tight against his shoulder to fit through the cramped space. Gon can feel the blindfold Illumi wears against his cheek and the latex from the cap that covers Illumi's hair; Gon's own is tied down with a bandanna to avoid catching in the mechanical parts they'll have to pass, while Illumi seems to be equally concerned about swimming through ballast and passing beside an incinerator.

Gon answers him regardless: "He's my _best_ friend."

"Mother and I thought he was too young to have those kinds of interests," Illumi continues, as if Gon hadn't spoken, "It appears we were mistaken. Kil isn't allowed to have friends, of course. But as family heir he will be expected to marry."

Gon doesn't know what he can say to him that he hasn't already: Killua doesn't want to be an assassin. Killua doesn't really even want to kill, as much as his Hunter's trade necessitates it at times. If Illumi tries to make him, Gon will never let Illumi see him again. 

"Grandfather says that your aura is impressive. That your abilities are progressing well for someone your age and with so little training. If I convinced mother, I'm certain she could convince father. I wouldn't mind having another little brother."

"I don't want to be your little brother." Gon spells it out as plainly as he can. 

Illumi cocks his head. This presses their faces together even tighter. Gon grits his teeth.

"No? You want Killua to marry someone else?"

Gon doesn't. He doesn't; the thought of it rankles in the pit of his stomach and rouses ugly feelings long left behind in East Gorteau. But he is not Killua's keeper, and if that is what Killua wanted, that is how it would be.

"If you and Kil married, Kil would never have to leave you ever again."

**Step 3/8: Acquire Consensus - September 5th 7:55-8:00 PM**

The small infirmary with its single cot has long since surpassed its maximum capacity. Gon and Killua sit squished together on the mattress, flanked by Bisky and Basho. Chrollo leans against the desk with his plastic bag of Kankos supplies; Kurapika opposite him on the supply cabinet, thumbing his chains. Hanzo chooses to stand in a corner; Melody to sit on the floor, politely. Illumi perches on the recessed door wheel, his feet hooked under its mechanism. The sole chair at the center of the room is empty.

Killua clears his throat. "Okay, so. We need to make sure everybody is on the same page here." 

Illumi raises his hand.

"To start with, we've got two teams: the team that's gonna construct our Trojang horse, and the team that’s gonna secure its delivery system. We'll call them Knight and Bandit."

Illumi's hand stays up.

"Melody, Basho, Hanzo, Gon, and Chrollo are on Knight team. Me, Izunavi, Kurapika, and Illumi are Bandits."

“Ah," Melody interjects softly, "I think Mr. Zoldyck has something to say."

Killua scowls. " _What_."

"Why don't we just kill him?"

Kurapika responds before Killua can: "How would we do that, given his abilities?" 

"Very easily." Illumi blinks. "If his sensory abilities are the same as usual in his precognitive state, you make contact with him in a way he wouldn't notice. Inject a slow-acting poison he wouldn't see the effects of until hours, or days, later."

Kurapika stiffens. "We are not _assassins_ \--"

"Some of us are assassins."

"--If we can do this bloodlessly, we will." 

"Yes," Chrollo agrees, "Your preference for bloodless solutions is well-known to us."

"I didn't know that would bother a man who butchers children to sell their body parts as curiosities."

"Kil, why didn't you tell them how to deal with--"

"Shut up, I don't have to listen to--"

"If anything, the Kurta clan seems to be better off as--"

"Say one more word and I--"

The sound of Melody's flute provides an idyllic interlude. Kurapika's fist is stayed, half-raised. Chrollo's hand pats his jacket aimlessly. Gon, one foot off the cot, sprawls back against Killua instead, awestruck by the sight of vast fields of flowers. 

When the vision fades, Melody asks, flute held ready at her lips: "We already agreed that this was how we'd do it, didn't we?"

**Step 4/8: Acquire The Distributor - September 5th 9:15-9:16 PM**

"Just like old times, Kil." 

Illumi lays a hand on Killua's shoulder. Killua smacks it off.

Illumi wears the same size suit as Basho, or close enough to it: most Hunters spring for tailoring, but some, such as Kurapika, cannot be bothered. That Illumi's waist and hips are narrower is dealt with via a few needles hidden in the fabric.

The Princes rarely get to see one another's full entourages, in any case.

_"That fails to explain how we're going to get past Prince Taithon's guards."_

_"Remember Izunavi?"_

_"Of course."_

_"He's already agreed to be our soft target. He'll let us know the next time Taithon is on the move - to see a sibling, go to a party, whatever. We'll move Oito along the same hallway in the opposite direction."_

_"And then what?"_

_"Oldest trick in the book: we create a distraction."_

"I saw you sneaking around in the Prince's quarters," Illumi snaps at Killua; or tries, what it lacks in convincing affect it makes up for with ominousness in spades.

Killua's back is against the wall. Their body language makes it plain that he is cornered; Killua's expression of trepidation-laced indignation is largely unfeigned. "I was folding _clothes_."

"Let's see what the police have to say about that, little liar." Illumi seizes Killua's wrist.

Killua waits until both Prince and Queen are within line of sight to kick Illumi in the shin. "Get your hands _off_ me!"

Nen flares to life around the hand Illumi uses to reach for Killua's throat; half of the guards and all of the Hunters reflexively tense. No one in Taithon's entourage moves to stop Bill or Kurapika when they rush forward in response. 

"Harm him and answer to Prince Woble." Kurapika levels his pistol.

Illumi's eyes narrow. He looks from side to side. Faster than anyone present save Killua can react, he shoves Killua into Kurapika's line of fire and bolts into the opposite direction.

Whereupon he slams into Izunavi. Who in turn stumbles into Taithon. All three of them fall, and in the mess of limbs and shock Illumi presses a finger to her temple, unseen. 

Most of Taithon's guards rush to see that she is unharmed. One drags Illumi upright; Illumi slips effortlessly out of his grip and flees. Out of sight, out of the hallway, as if he'd never been there at all.

Aside from a scratch on her forehead, Prince Taithon is fine. Her guards take her back to her suite. Summon a doctor to test her blood for poison. 

Killua swallows bile.

_"If Illumi doesn't take it out, I can."_

_Gon's sole contribution is simply, "If Illumi doesn't take it out, we_ make him."

**Step 5/8: Acquire The Decoys - September 5th 9:00 PM - September 6th 2:00 AM**

Making the fake books is fun. It reminds Gon of his better projects for correspondence classes back when he was a child. Print-outs of the scanned covers don't have the same texture as Chrollo's own book; the bulk of the supplies from Kankos are scissors, glue, and cardstock.

Gon lays his own hand over the paper handprint. The white makes it look like bones.

"Huh," Basho remarks as he flips through the fake pages while the glue dries, "I didn't know making your bed every morning was so important."

"Yes." Hanzo nods, sagely. "It's an integral part of shinobi training. You clean the training halls before dawn as well. It builds discipline."

"I don't know about that." Basho skims another paragraph. "Feels like that would deprive the owner of personal responsibility."

"It's a sign of respect," Hanzo asserts, "And doing it together fosters harmony."

"Shouldn't you clean your own room before you clean the rooms of others?"

"I think we should let people clean whatever rooms they want," Melody suggests, and is ignored.

Hanzo insists: "No. One should clean the rooms of others before their own. To put others above self is the truest measure of strength."

"Strength, or weakness? Meddling in others’ affairs. Nannying them."

Gon isn't sure who's right; Mito always made him clean his own room, but would also clean his grandmother's room when she wasn't feeling well. 

Melody sidles away from the subject. Towards Chrollo, who lines up the covers, razor in hand. "You seem accustomed to this, Mr., ah, Lucifer."

"This isn't my first heist." The cuts are deep, swift, and exact. "Shal used to come up with schemes like this all the time."

**Step 6/8: Acquire Deniability - September 6th 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM**

_"When the books are done, Izunavi can sneak them into Taithon's room - under Illumi's control, she'll think they're her new magnum opus. Specially written for her siblings in their time of need."_

_"Why would Prince Tserriednich let her give him one? A man of his intellect will suspect that this is a trap."_

_"Yeah, no shit. That's why we've got the fakes. First she offers to give them to the Princes we already know she's friendly with. And the ones we know don't plan on offing their younger siblings. Nothing happens to those guys. Plus - and this is the kicker - she meets with them_ alone _."_

Zhang Lei politely declines Taithon's invitation for a private tea party to celebrate her book's unveiling. Tubeppa graciously accepts; she humours Taithon for the better part of an hour before finding something better to do, book untouched on her coffee table. Maryam has an enjoyable, if assiduously supervised, playdate with his big sister. Halkenburg reads the book, is surprised to learn that his sister of all people is such an adherent of Gordan P'tersanov, and begins a debate with her on its philosophical merits.

Back inside the infirmary, Illumi is completely out of his depth. Taithon defends her work out of instinct; when Bisky asks who was responsible for choosing the book content and whether or not they actually read it first, Killua does his best to look innocent.

Kurapika pours himself a stiff drink, sits down in front of Illumi, and through him provides a rousing, afternoon-long defense of moral universalism.

**Step 7/8: Acquire The Meeting - September 6th 5:10-5:20 PM**

Killua's supposition proves accurate: offered the chance to be alone with one of his weaker siblings, on his own turf, surrounded by his own entourage, after the others have suffered no ill effects, Tserriednich does not refuse. 

_"That's when we switch the fakes out for the real deal. And we give Taithon Chrollo's ability."_

_"What makes you think Chrollo will be willing to go through with it?"_

_"That's easy. The question is whether or not you will."_

They decide to use Melody's ability for their demonstration. She's already shown it; Killua's own power, he insists, will knock Kurapika 'on his ass'.

Chrollo watches Kurapika use Steal Chain on Melody. Watches Melody demonstrate that she can still use her ability just fine. Watches Kurapika give that ability to Bisky, who uses it, albeit shrilly and two-note, once and no more.

"Very well," says Chrollo, ruddy in the light of Kurapika's gaze, "Go on."

Illumi rises to stand behind Kurapika. Presses the point of a needle against his jugular vein hard enough to prick it. No move Kurapika makes will be fast enough to escape should this go awry.

Bisky's fists are clenched.

Killua's pupils are small and night-black.

Kurapika summons his chains.

_Chin on her knuckles, Bisky is the last to voice a concern. "Sounds like this whole thing is a powderkeg in want of a match."_

_Killua heaves a sigh. "That's what you're here for."_

_"Oh?"_

_"All of this is predicated on a truce: no revenge killings until we all get off the boat. It's a small price to pay to see the future and find out where Hisoka is, right? But I don't trust them any more than you do. Don't let Chrollo out of your sight."_

_Hanzo is skeptical: "Might I suggest that I would be more suited to shadowing a threat than this young lady?"_

_Bisky laughs sweetly. "Perfect."_

**Step 8/8: Acquire The Ability - September 6th 5:53-8:18 PM**

Transferring Chrollo's ability to Taithon proves laughably simple: of all of the Princes, Taithon is the only one without any female guards or Hunters in her retinue. In open settings, or events like the gala, she takes a single nenless servant with her to the restroom. Kurapika waits less than an hour in one of the stalls, wearing a wig, Bisky's borrowed lip gloss, black contacts, and glasses with tinted lenses, before he has the chance to execute this step with none the wiser.

Gon and Killua spend this time wiring the infirmary into an impromptu observation post. Killua seems to know the location of every line, hub, terminal, and controller on Tier 1, for all Gon recalls Killua complaining about Bisky's 'dumb homework' in the weeks prior. Racing him through the decks unseen has made avoiding the crew second nature, too. There are no security cameras to feed the monitor they’ve swiped from Woble’s suite in Tserriednich's own quarters, of course - to Kurapika's queries, all Killua will say is that they have a man on the inside who will plant one for them.

Gon zaps himself one time too many and wakes up on the cot in the infirmary. 

Chrollo sits at the desk, hunched and skimming through the pages of an unused fake. When he notices Gon stir, he says, "So this is what outsiders contemplate while their waste piles higher than mountains."

If that's how he feels, he could always start another NGL, Gon thinks. He says nothing; he suspects another lecture is coming.

"Outsiders who let children share souls." Chrollo continues; to Gon, he sounds tired. "Tell me: has anyone ever explained to you what that entails?"

They haven't, so Chrollo does. What it has to do with him, Gon isn't sure, but he makes a mental note to ask Killua what 'blasphemy' means.

When Killua is finished, and Taithon is ready for her private unveiling, the players assemble. Kurapika looks ragged; sustaining Emperor Time for hours on end must be difficult for him. He and Chrollo can no longer sit on opposite sides of the room; for an adequate view of the monitor screen, they sit together, with only Illumi in between. Who has brought a bowl of chips, which he eats with chopsticks while they watch.

To no one's surprise, Chrollo refuses to describe his ability's restrictions in detail. What they know of them from Hisoka, the Hunters are equally unwilling to reveal. 

Getting Tserriednich to demonstrate his ability is easy: it's the first thing he does when Taithon enters the room. He leaves it running for the initial minutes of their encounter while they exchange pleasantries: condescending and deadpan, respectively.

Taithon holds the book aloft as if it were a holy offering, both palms in support of the back cover. The infirmary grows tense; when Tserriednich takes hold of it by the sides, Kurapika exhales sharply and Killua swears. Illumi raises another wafer to his lips.

Taithon declines tea, and Tserriednich declares, one brow arched, "I heard from Halkenburg that you've taken up rhetoric."

"Oh no." Kurapika grasps the bowl, white-knuckled. "Change the _subject_."

"Not really," Taithon replies, "Hee hee. Let's talk about my book."

"All in due time," Tserriednich insists, "But first I need to understand: to what tradition do you ascribe? What are its philosophical underpinnings? As you know, Halkenburg is a materialist through and through. But he tells me that you believe in a transcendental ideal? This intrigues me."

Illumi awaits Kurapika's input; Kurapika is rapidly out of his depth.

"He's not talking about P'tersanov, he's talking about Kont. I haven't read Kont."

"I have," Chrollo offers.

"Ah. What _is_ your take on the moral metaphysics of burglary."

"Do you want my help or not."

Chrollo and Kurapika pinch hit for one another until at last Tserriednich leads them on a tangent about nihilism so complex that Bisky, the only person present who has read Niestcheise, can follow.

"Niestcheise hasn't been relevant for fifty years." Chrollo is duly impressed.

"He's back in with the kids," Bisky deflects.

It comes to a merciful end when Illumi has Taithon attempt to take the book away by sliding it across the table, fingers delicately laid at the edge of the top cover, in order to show Tserriednich a 'relevant passage'. He responds by placing his hand firmly atop it to yank it back.

Chrollo glances past Illumi, chin in his palm. "You have twenty minutes to get him to explain his ability to you."

Illumi offers him a chip.

**Step 9/8: Contingencies - September 6th 8:18-8:36 PM**

_Before the other Hunters are called back to the infirmary, Gon sets the last of the sketch-riddled packing slips down on the sheets in front of Killua and asks, "What'll we do when this fails?"_

_"Hey, don't jinx-- yeah." Killua's lips twist downward from cocky to calculating. "Yeah. It is pretty complicated. The chances of it going off without a hitch are pretty much zero. You're right: we need to talk contingencies."_

_But which? Killua spent days going over what he thought to be every possible variable during the palace invasion; even then he'd known that taking them all into account was impossible. The possibilities are infinite: they could execute the same plan on a different day, or an hour later, and the results could be drastically dissimilar. The margins for error are too wide, Killua has learned, and there is a limit to how much the players can adapt to overcome them. "No, we need a trump card. Our own break-glass-in-case-of-emergency protocol in case shit goes completely sideways."_

_Gon nods. "Our own Rose."_

Tserriednich has no interest in sharing information on his ability. Not in return for learning Taithon's; not even in exchange for the abilities of the other Princes. When Chrollo successfully steers the conversation in that direction - doubtless from hard-earned experience - Tserriednich gives answers that Kurapika's Dowsing Chain detects as evasive half-truths at best, bald-faced lies at worst. 

With nine minutes remaining on the stopwatch Gon holds, Kurapika scrubs a hand through his hair. He flicks the strands that catch between his fingers off onto the floor. "What do you normally do when your target refuses to cooperate?"

"Cajole. Threaten. Deceive. Depends on the mark." Chrollo raises an upturned palm. "I usually do this step first."

"I don't suppose anyone can think of any credible threats at the moment?" Kurapika asks of the other Hunters through clenched teeth.

Bisky shrugs. "Maybe if this was Prince Benjamin."

"Can't you lend her some of your assassin powers or something?" Basho inquires of Illumi. "Put on the pain."

"I could." Illumi chews and swallows. "But people--"

"--Lie when they're afraid," he and Killua respond.

Killua scowls; Illumi blinks. Melody chews her lip. Bisky folds her legs up, chin in hand. Hanzo begins to meditate. Kurapika begins to grind his teeth. Chrollo feeds Illumi more idle conversation.

Gon squeezes Killua's hand. 

The feed to their pilfered monitor devolves into static; Taithon and Tserriednich's voices are intermittently audible, as if carried across a stormy harbour. 

"Now _what_ ," Kurapika snaps.

"Fine on my end," Illumi adds helpfully.

Killua hops to his feet. "Must be something wrong with the signal. I'll go check it out." He picks his way across the floor; ducks out the door before anyone can offer a better solution.

Not including its wings, the length of the average Kakinese cockroach is five centimeters. Kurapika does not have the construction designs for the Black Whale as Gon and Killua do, but if pressed could have estimated the size of the ventilation intakes in each Prince's rooms to be the height of three cockroaches. From there he could infer that these are standard 15 x 30 centimeter grates. 

The skull breadth of the average adult male is well above 15 centimeters. A woman or child may more easily fit their heads through, but the average shoulder breadth of an adult female is 40 centimeters, and that of an adolescent male is even wider. This is, undoubtedly, an intentional element of the design.

It takes Killua one minute to reach the closest externally accessible duct with connections to Tserriednich's private quarters. He dislocates his left shoulder and squeezes inside at a medial-lateral diagonal in four seconds.

Inside, the ductwork itself widens 30 x 20 to accommodate the airflow from multiple rooms without undue static pressure losses. The widest measurement is 36 centimeters; shuffling forward with shoulders rounded, braced against the metal, this is sufficient to allow Killua to reach the vent above Tserriednich's bedroom in three minutes.

In Tserriednich's bedroom, the lights flicker and die the moment before Killua crawls into view.

Tserriednich's immediate reaction is to activate his ability.

To do this, he enters _zetsu_ , and as he enters _zetsu_ , he closes his eyes.

Before Tserriednich's eyelashes touch Killua has crossed the room at Godspeed. 

"Black out," remarks Illumi idly.

Melody touches Kurapika's shoulder. "Prince Taithon might be in danger."

Kurapika does not turn to her. "We still have five minutes."

"Well... time... dear sister," Tserriednich begins, through what remains of the garbled audio, "Since... last meeting... suppose... share with you... source of my power."

No one in the room breathes. Kurapika's gaze is rooted on his chain. 

"They just do this sometimes," says Chrollo.

" _Zetsu_... ten seconds... continuous... progresses as I..."

Bisky glances at Gon's stopwatch. "Four minutes."

"...Lag time... altered events do not... outsiders..."

"Does he need to talk about the restrictions, too?" Hanzo asks.

Chrollo nods.

"He's telling the truth." A bead of sweat drips from Kurapika's chin.

"Three minutes."

"Dismissed... time catches up... can reactivate..."

There is absolute stillness in the ensuing silence. When Chrollo pulls his book out of his coat he startles half of the Hunters present; even Illumi drops a chip.

He rifles through the pages. Nods. "Got it."

"Get her out of there," Melody insists.

Kurapika's fists are balled; his eyes blink back into blackness. "Right. Extract Taithon."

"It's dark."

Over Illumi's shoulder, Hanzo hisses, " _Now_."

Under strict orders that he is not to be disturbed, nor is anyone to come into his room for any reason, Prince Tserriednich's guards are surprised to say the least to see Taithon open the door and sprint through the suite as fast as her legs can carry her.

They find the Prince just as surprised, staring off in the direction she left, entirely unharmed.

"Can't take criticism?" Salkov asks in the awkward lull that follows.

**Step 10/8: Loose Ends**

_The Hostage - September 5th 2:30 PM - September 6th 10:30 PM_

It takes Leorio less than an evening with the Troupe to discover that they are categorically uninterested in his actions or whereabouts. If he strays far enough, two of them will shadow him from a distance - which seems to have more to do with their wariness regarding Hisoka than it does his own potential to escape - but they otherwise seem to have less concern about his latitude than they did about the pair of 12-year-olds they apprehended in Yorknew.

If Leorio is being entirely honest with himself, in the back of his mind, his decision to stay the night in their hideout has as much to do with his own pride as it does any restrictions they've put on him.

The atmosphere is more relaxed than he anticipated, though if he's being honest again, he had no idea what to expect from an informal gathering of elite bandits from the world's largest trash pile. Conversations are scattered and subdued. Shizuku and Kalluto play cards. Machi picks threads of nen. Franklin reads. Feitan and Nobunaga spar lazily while Phinks and Bono provide critique that seems equal parts informative and jibing.

Leorio skims a classified paper on known infectious agents from the Dark Continent surreptitiously printed from Cheadle's laptop. He doesn't absorb much; he's too nervous to nap - equal parts bored out of his mind and convinced that any second the deal will be off and he'll have his head hacked off in an instant.

Leorio wonders if he could get away with a stroll. He clears his throat.

"You need to take a piss or something, pal?" Phinks asks. "Go for it."

" _Not_ in here," Machi amends.

"I wasn't going to..."

Phinks gestures to the door. "Then what are you waiting for? We're not gonna shake it off for you."

"Depends how much you pay." Feitan's eyes crinkle at the corners. "Fancy Association doctor lots of jenny."

"Yeah, sure," Phinks chuckles, "Double fee for Machi."

"I don't want--"

"Triple for Kalluto."

"Oh Jesus Christ," Leorio mutters, "Your _en_ has it covered, is what you're saying. Let me know how long my tether is, here."

"Trade secret."

"Speak of _en_ , I hear that Royal Guard have _en_ for miles. Radius." Feitan takes another slow swipe.

Nobunaga bats it aside. "Is that true, Hunter MD?"

"I don't know." Knov and Shoot were scant on details. Understandable, since the few Leorio did hear made him want to shake them. Given that they killed Netero, however: "Probably."

Phinks whistles, "Damn."

Feitan sighs, "All dead now. None for us."

"Wonder much you'd get for one of their heads. The Association's probably got them stuffed on a shelf somewhere..."

" _I_ wonder how the hell that little punk took one of them out."

Leorio blinks, slowly. "You don't mean Gon."

"Yeah? That's his name, right? One of the two really ripped gay kids. The black-haired one."

" _Gon_ told you he killed a Royal Guard?"

"See?" Phinks jabs a finger. "I knew he was full of shit."

"Wait - no. No, he's not, he did, but, _when_. When did _Gon_ talk to you?"

"Couple weeks ago? When was the first time you two played punchy-cutty, eh Feitan?"

"Long time ago." Feitan shrugs. "Sea travel very tiresome."

"The... 'first'... time." Leorio is speechless for a few beats. "Gon has been down here. With you. Multiple times. For weeks."

The better part of the Troupe turns to Leorio, equally speechless. 

At last, Machi says, "You mean he _wasn't_ spying for chain asshole?"

The Troupe finds this hilarious. Leorio is going to wring Gon's neck. After the match, Nobunaga sits down beside him to ask him privately how Gon and Killua are doing. Leorio has no idea what the Troupe's founding members saw through Pakunoda's eyes, but he intuits a lingering fondness for the two of them, manifested as a mild reluctance to kill them on the part of most Spiders, something more for some.

Leorio owes them, he realizes unpleasantly, for not simply murdering Gon and tossing his body in the trash. They could have; if they suspected he was spying for Kurapika, they _should_ have. 

So he repays them. The only way he can: he heals Nobunaga's bad knees. He stimulates the growth of new alveoli from the scars in Feitan's lungs. New neurons in the dark spots in Phinks' brain from when he was nearly smothered as an infant. The microscopic tears in Kalluto's joints from holding stress positions too long that would have haunted him as he grew older. Machi is a surgeon extraordinaire, she can heal fresh wounds with a speed and precision that astounds Leorio, but these wounds are already healed. Grown to be part of their bearers.

If goodwill must be what stays their hands from killing Kurapika and the children, so be it.

After this they invite him to their card games and conversations. Let him do his rounds, escorted, on Tier 5. He and Machi talk shop late into the night; strategize over what can be done for Shizuku. At times this turns philosophical - there's more money in being a Medical Hunter than there is in being a thief. The Association's many members in the Fortune 50 are the kind of people who buy the things they steal for pocket change. Why fight the world, when you can join it? Why not do both?

Leorio's ejection as soon as they learn that the deal has succeeded is as abrupt as it is casual.

He ascends to Tier 3, as planned. Makes contact with Cheadle and Mizai; takes both - utterly unaware of the plan but not easily overpowered by the Troupe - out for coffee. Inputs the access code he was given for a service corridor; picks up an emergency phone with a hardline to the upper Tiers. Says the phrase that means that he's safe, they've released him, and as far as he knows he doesn't have a tail.

Then Leorio returns to the clinic to pass the time the same way he has the rest of the voyage: waiting for a sign that Kurapika has retained some degree of his sanity.

_The Deal - September 6th 8:47-9:02 PM_

Killua returns to the infirmary shortly after confirming Leorio's release. He's fixed their signal problems, too - not that much is to be gained by watching Tserriednich sit baffled in the dark. In time, someone comes along to change the Prince's light bulbs.

"They let him go. No issues," Killua says, and Kurapika pulls out his cellphone.

There's no service this far out. There hasn't been for weeks now. They watch Kurapika thumb open an app and begin to scroll through his messages.

Chrollo is no longer interested in games. "Where is Hisoka?"

"Yorknew," Kurapika says, and tosses him the phone.

Kurapika's Grindr x Grindr messages from ElasticLover52 date forward in time until they ran out of signal from shore, and back until the Hunter Exam over two years ago. The chat features pictures of Hisoka from what must be every possible angle; far fewer are from Kurapika, but there are enough that Gon's eyebrows raise, Killua's cheeks burn, and Bisky looks thoughtful.

The IP addresses of the messages match locations Chrollo knows; they match locations that _only_ Chrollo knows. The last handful are from central Yorknew: they regard the estimated date of Kurapika's return and a detailed description of the ministrations Hisoka will require to alleviate his less elastic forms of love upon it, to which Kurapika has replied, "ok".

Kurapika stands ready to fight. On all sides there is the faint insinuation of heat; of ozone; of extra weight on the cot where Bisky sits.

The expressions Chrollo's face transitions through are many and varied. They settle on acceptance, and he hands the phone back with more delicacy than it was offered.

"You kept up your end of the bargain," Chrollo says, "We'll respond in kind."

With that, he vanishes.

Illumi continues to eat.

_The Players - September 6th 9:02-9:04 PM_

When no attack seems to be immediately forthcoming, Killua declares that he 'should take all this shit down or someone's gonna notice' and leaves the room to do so.

"Yes. Good." Kurapika kneads his own brow. "Now, we need to..."

No one is particularly surprised when Kurapika collapses to his knees, glazed and vacant. To Gon he reeks of anxious sweat; to Melody his heart thrashes like a heavy metal concert. Hanzo and Basho do him the favour of carrying him by the shoulders between them instead of in either of their arms like a child.

"We'll tell Oito's doctor he had another fainting spell," Hanzo offers to Melody by way of reassurance.

Melody chews her lip.

Bisky slides off the cot. "Guess I'll go make sure Chrollo's not hiding in a closet somewhere."

Illumi starts to put up his hair.

"We're waiting until I know Kurapika's okay," Gon tells him.

Melody looks between them. At the door. Up at the ceiling. "Phew," she says at last, "That was exciting. I need a walk."

Of all the players present, only Melody could hear a voice speaking in tandem with Tserriednich. Despite the volume and the static and the fact that it was so muted that even Illumi-as-Taithon sitting no more than a body-length away could not discern it.

A boy's voice. Different words. Describing a terrible power.

Killua's heartbeat had had the rhythm of a wounded animal limping off to find a quiet place to die.

Melody leaves the room to follow that sound.


	6. Intimacy x and x Codependence - Part 5: Adversity | Contingencies (6-13 September 2001)

Killua's footsteps make no sound; his heart is distinctively placid. Its beats rarely rise or fall in tempo: each one happens precisely when it is meant to, when it was trained to, when it should. Melody had thought this rhythm to be unique until she heard Illumi's. 

She makes her excuses to the crew when they inquire: she wants fresh air, she needs to smoke. Each one subtly reveals with their own hearts what they would find most convincing. Just as at home, most don't bother to question professional Hunters at any rate: the reputation of those like Hisoka precedes them, and 'of course, sir,' is the safest option.

Killua has gone out to the quarterdeck. This is the first time Melody has been outside all voyage; the dome is up now and her first view is of a moon warped oblong by plexiglass. 

Halfway to the stern railing, Killua sits in the shadow of the anchor winch. He glances up at Melody and says nothing.

She crouches down in front of him, several feet away. Her own heart reaches a brief crescendo. When she looks at him she is reminded of a time she cut herself with a kitchen knife, deeply, and was too young and foolhardy to treat the wound before it was infected. Of the thick brown-green-violet lines that branched from the gash up her arm and into the rest of her blood.

In the dark these patterns look grey. They mottle Killua's flushed face, sunken eyes, his throat, and what is bared of his shoulders and arms and even his legs.

"I don't know why this is happening," he confesses. Even Killua's strained breathing is steady. "It shouldn't be happening."

"What happened?" Melody asks, and to counter Killua's silence, tentatively adds: "I heard you."

Killua's heartbeats echo wintry solitude. "Did anybody else?"

"No."

That relentlessly calm rhythm turns rueful. "Tserriednich's nen beast. It did something to me. I can't _believe_ we didn't-" Killua doubles over. "I didn't, take, it-"

He spits up what must have been his supper - half a slice of cake and most of an apple - onto the deck and when he follows it with his elbows Melody realizes that he hasn't risen because he can't.

"We were so _stupid_."

"You need help. Queen Oito's doctor-"

"Can't use nen."

"One of the other Queens then, surely."

Killua shakes his head emphatically. Wipes the rest of the bile off his chin with his sleeve. "They'll ask questions. All of them. Kurapika'll be arrested, or executed. Tell Kurapika he can't attack Tserriednich. He can't lie to him."

Melody knows that Killua is correct. That even if Killua does not answer these questions, the matter will be investigated. Prince Tserriednich will make the connection - if he hasn't already - and insist that all of those involved are punished. As will, assuredly, Prince Taithon. That if they do she herself might be the weakest link, the one without Kurapika's resolve or Killua's training.

"I'm getting help," says Melody, in this singular moment in time when Killua is powerless to stop her.

Killua's heart plays a subdued variation of betrayal, resignation, and gratitude; over his next word, it skips a beat: "Gon. Get Gon."

Melody returns to the ship to do just that, and does not ask herself what Killua had planned to do if she hadn't followed him.

She tells Gon that Killua needs his assistance with the wiring. Gon tells Illumi to stay with the affect of the stern master of a misbehaving dog. 

The pounding of his heart is so loud and so discordant that Melody knows the instant Gon finds his friend.

But Killua will be okay. He replies as much every time Gon asks him. His head lolls bonelessly against Gon's shoulder and his skin burns against Gon's back, but he mumbles 'I'm okay' at each stage of the arduous trek down to Deck 3.

"Killua?" Gon asks at the end of the swim to the sluice gate when he pulls Killua out of the water.

"I'm okay," Killua responds, and settles on Gon's back.

"What's two plus five?" Gon asks when he pauses for a few seconds to rest after dragging Killua backwards through two hundred meters of pipe. 

"I'm okay," Killua responds, slumped in his lap.

"I'm Killua and if I say 'I'm okay' I'm stupid and I'll never eat chocolate robots again," Gon says before they start the long climb down the disposal shaft.

"I'm okay," Killua responds, eyes half-open and unseeing. 

Gon wipes his nose, rips off his sleeve, and uses it to tie Killua's wrists around his neck so that he doesn't fall off.

Killua will be okay. Leorio will make him better. If not, Leorio will know someone who can. If not, Gon will scour the ship down to the last screw to find a way. There will be a way.

Inexperienced climbers seldom realize that the trek downwards is even more daunting than upwards; Gon has a different route, and it's impossible to know by feel in this pitch blackness what will hold both of their weights and what won't. Made even more complicated by the fact that Killua, unlike Illumi, is too weak to brace himself. He dangles, sways, and threatens to throw Gon off-balance. The going is painstakingly slow.

Gon loses a foothold to a patch of grease. Catches a sharp, narrow fan cover with the tips of his fingers; below him is an eighty-foot drop and, if he fell backward, Killua ready to be crushed at the bottom of it. He uses words that would have made Mito wash his mouth out with every ounce of soap in the house.

Jostled, Killua is roused. "Hey, Gon," he drawls against Gon's shoulder. He sounds exhausted. "You think Bisky was right about us learning healing abilities yet?"

"Haha, yep." Gon breathes in hard through his nose to steady himself and finds another toehold.

See: Killua will be okay. He always is. Killua will be fine.

There is another voice inside Gon's head with a different mantra, a poisonous voice, one that winds around the edges of his thoughts and refuses to be shoved away. One he has trampled many times, grown too deep and sturdy to be uprooted after their flight from the NGL.

_Will he, though?_ It asks.

Kite was fine.

_Is she, though?_ It whispers.

As Killua's reassurances grow fainter and less frequent, it grows in volume. Coils ever more tightly.

Gon put him up to this. Because Gon couldn't do it himself. Gon couldn't do anything; Gon can't do anything for him now; this was Gon's idea; this is Gon's _fault_.

" _No_ ," Gon growls.

Killua will be fine.

They're less than sixty feet from the bottom. Gon's seen Netero fall further than that firsthand. Land light as a feather. If he holds Killua in his arms and guards his legs with _ken_ he should be fine. 

Had it been that simple, it almost certainly would have. But it is too dark to see and there are obstructions and a grade and he has no control over Killua's limbs and he realizes while already in freefall that if he doesn't extend his nen protection to Killua, too, Killua will feel the impact in its entirety.

Killua's heel catches a pipe; it knocks Gon off-balance and it is impossible to correct mid-air; Gon hits the back of his unprotected head on the shaft wall and the rest is a blurry tumble into void that ends very suddenly in a tangle of limbs and a splitting pain in his ankle that hurts so bad Gon wants to scream.

"Gon? Gon, you okay?" Killua has to coax him upright, even though he just fell the same distance. 

Gon has to take him through the walkways of Deck 3, even though Killua said they shouldn't be seen.

Killua has to help him walk, even though he looks like he has one foot in the grave.

At least it is still what passes for night. The design of the Black Whale allows for little penetration of sunlight beyond the uppermost Tiers; the fluorescent lighting is ever-present and cannot be dimmed, and as the weeks have passed biological rhythms have become a distant memory. Its passengers retire in the evening because the clock says so.

They pass few others and turn even fewer heads. The short stroll to Gon's berth takes a small eternity.

Gon shakes Leorio awake by the shoulders.

"Knock it _off_ , Gon - _Gon_ , what happened to you?" Leorio's infuriated expression shifts to concern on a dime; he doesn't see Killua, seated on the floor with his forehead on his knees, until a beat later. 

Leorio kneels in front of Killua. Lifts his head gently; brushes open his eyelids, checks his pulse, feels his flushed skin. The hum of Leorio's nen is soft and soothing. 

"He said not to take him to the clinic, no matter what," Gon tells him, "He said it could get Kurapika in trouble."

"Of course he did," Leorio mutters.

Leorio strips Killua's damp, torn, and filthy clothes off. He carries him to the bath and runs the water cold. He carries Gon there, too, and sets him on the edge of the tub. 

"Keep his head out of the water," Leorio instructs Gon quietly, "He'll probably lose consciousness. I'll be back soon."

Gon's not sure Killua hasn't already.

Leorio returns with bags of ice, an IV, and the most powerful antipyretics the clinic has to offer someone with a set of keys and a strong motivation. Gon can't follow what Leorio does with his nen. It's slow, delicate, and deliberate - it reminds Gon of the owner of the bar on Whale Island where Mito would take him when she wanted a glass of wine. How he'd build tiny ships, perfect replicas of the ones anchored in the harbour outside, with tweezers and a toothpick. The handful of times Killua opens his eyes they are bloodshot and his expression is of miserable resolve.

At length, Leorio seems satisfied. He takes Killua away. Dries him off, and puts him in his own bed. Runs that IV line to Killua's arm and from where he sits, Gon can't make out their hushed conversation. He hears his own name, twice; that's enough. Leorio watches Killua sleep for a while.

When Leorio returns to the bathroom, Gon is still angrily crying. Wordlessly, Leorio sets and splints and wraps Gon's ankle. Offers Gon painkillers and rubs his calf until his hiccups die down.

"Gon," Leorio says, raises a hand, and for a moment it looks as if he intends to slap Gon's face and Gon has no intention of stopping him; instead, Leorio smooths out Gon's blood-and-grease-matted hair. "I'm glad you came to me. You two can, you know? Any time you need help."

Gon knows. Of course he knows: that's why he brought Killua down here in the first place. Leorio can do something for him. 

Gon can't; Gon sits uselessly at Killua's side. He can't tell if Killua looks any better or not. 

"Why is he sick?" 

Leorio takes a seat at his desk. Turns the chair around to face them. None of the three is more than an arm's length away from the others. "That nen beast must have produced some kind of toxin."

That can't be right. "Poison doesn't work on Killua."

"That's exactly the problem."

Gon doesn't get it.

"The toxin isn't doing this to him. His own body is." 

Why would Killua's body do that?

"Look, Gon: when you get sick, you might get a fever. That's your own body's attempt to kill the pathogen inside of you. Your runny nose is to clear it out of your respiratory tract with mucous. The cold itself isn't doing it to you." Leorio rubs the bridge of his own nose. "It does the same thing to other foreign antigens. Given the magnitude of his immune response, this _isn't_ Killua's first exposure."

That makes sense, but: "Poison's never made Killua sick before."

"It's never made him symptomatic before, you mean. He was immune to Chimera Ant venom too, wasn't he? That species comes from the Dark Continent, so how can that be? I have two theories. One: the Zoldycks have access to Dark Continent specimens. Two: the Zoldycks' immunization program is designed to confer immunity to broad classes, not individual toxins."

Gon thought you just drank lots of little sips of poison and could eventually handle lots.

Leorio sighs, patiently, and does not comment on the efficacy of homeschooling. "Arsenic isn't the same as a bee sting. Or an ant bite. If my first theory is correct, there's no reason to think they wouldn't have access to Kakinese nen beasts, too. That is if these don't also have a Dark Continent origin, which I suspect they might. If the second is, the lack of specificity is what's led to the lag in his immune system's response time and the severity of that response."

But what if it's the first one?

"In that case I suspect Killua was first exposed to whatever this is when he was very young. His immunity has waned, and he hasn't been back home to renew it. Just like you'll be needing booster shots for your own vaccinations, too, Gon..." Leorio trails off. He squints. "Ging _did_ vaccinate you, didn't he?"

"Aunt Mito did." Ages ago, when the mainland doctor made her yearly visit to Whale Island; she gave Gon a sucker. Gon wonders if that's why Killua likes lollipops so much. He must have had hundreds of needles.

"Oh thank god." Leorio sighs.

"So, Killua's making himself sick?"

"In order to keep this toxin from doing whatever it was intended to do, yes. Hurt him, kill him - or worse. I'm only managing his symptoms."

At first Gon thinks it's stupid for Killua to hurt himself this way, then he reconsiders. Gon did the same thing to land a hit on Genthru. To lull him into a false sense of confidence; to trap him. That's what Killua must be doing. Good.

"Good luck, Killua." There's nothing his friend can't kill if he puts his mind to it.

Leorio seems perplexed by Gon's response, but doesn't investigate. They watch Killua together. Eventually, Leorio prods Gon into changing his clothes and taking a shower. This is frustrating when he hurts all over; he's grown accustomed to Killua bathing him when he's injured. By the time he comes out Killua is saying weird things. Leorio says this is normal.

Leorio calls in sick for his shift at the clinic. He studies; makes ramen; from time to time checks on Killua and ducks out to get Gon food. Gon waits.

Killua wakes up intermittently. He thinks Leorio is one of the medics at Heaven's Arena. He asks Leorio when his father is going to let him come home.

"What the hell do I say to that," Leorio mutters.

Later, toward the next evening, Killua's eyes are round and glassy and dark and he asks Gon if he was any use to him at all.

"Yes," Gon says.

And waits.

That night Leorio tells Gon that Killua is stable, which Gon interprets to mean that Killua is winning. Crouched on the bed beside him with his knee pulled up, Gon squeezes Killua's hand.

Leorio has to cover a shift for the one he missed. He downs four cups of coffee before he leaves; he'll be on call for Tier 3 until morning. If anything happens, Gon can hit the emergency call button like anybody else.

Alone with him at last, Gon allows his nen to bleed into Killua's. The sensation still makes his stomach lurch; it's easier when Killua can't reciprocate. 

What was clear and cool and sweet is now murky and lukewarm and fetid. The difference between plunging into a mountain stream and wading into a swamp. It smells like spoiled milk and tastes like rotten fruit. He feels mired waist-deep in a damp pit in which other animals have died.

Gon wants to get free very badly. He doesn't. He curls around Killua, and falls asleep.

In Gon's dreams he finds the slimy trail of nen poison the beast has left behind. He uses this to track it through the urban nightscapes of Killua's subconscious to a lair full of toys and shackles, candy and knives. It is a misshapen non-animal with long black hair, wearing the hides of the Kakin Princes, and it crouches over Killua's prone form, in the process of skinning him alive.

Gon has cleaned fish before. He has hunted game for Mito when storms made food shipments scarce. What differences exist his mind paints in with Chimera Ant blue; gristle rips and fat slops, and beneath what sloughs off Killua's bare muscles are wet and shiny.

Killua bears it without complaint.

"Look at him," it says, "Rare and well-cultivated. Comely. Precious."

Gon tries to wrench the beast away from Killua. It is infuriatingly strong and will not budge, even if he hits it over and over and over again. He punches and kicks and bites it. With its two mouths it swallows his nen. It embraces him languidly like a coiled snake.

Gon tries to gouge out its eyes with his hands. It responds by eating its way through his stomach; it winds its too-long neck back around his torso from the other side to face him, forehead to forehead, scraps of Gon's intestines stuck between its bloody teeth. 

"You, on the other hand, are a wild animal. Killing you will be little more than taxidermy."

Gon is so tired and in so much pain. It would be so nice to lay down and die next to Killua.

Gon seizes it by the throat as hard as he can. Holds on with all his might until its bones pop and his fingernails tear into its many-layered hide.

Killua sinks his claws into its legs.

Gon cuts off the flow of his nen.

When the beast is torn in half between them it shrieks. Howls. Spits blood into Gon's face. Gon does not flinch.

Killua has already removed the IV by the time Gon awakens. He is sitting up at a slight incline with the assistance of a bent-in-half pillow; his bangs are sweat-plastered to his brow. His eyes are bright blue again.

Killua’s mouth tastes gross. "I'm fucking _parched_ ," he protests in his defense, and Gon points to the bottles of Alligade Leorio left him a half-second before Gon notices that they're all empty.

Their next plan of action is obvious. Killua needs help getting dressed. Killua needs help going to the bathroom. He isn't very bruised at all; Killua rolls his eyes and tells Gon that he concentrated too much _ken_ on protecting Killua and not enough on himself.

Gon snaps back that he was only trying to help.

"If you'd broken your neck or something in that fall we both would've died, idiot."

Gon lets Killua go and Killua nearly falls into the toilet.

There is a vending machine around the corner from Gon and Leorio's room. Gon pulls out a fistfull of jenny; Killua shakes his head, grins, and with a single touch a pile of drinks and snacks pours forth onto the floor in front of them.

They sit on the deck to devour their ill-gotten feast by the monochrome light of the vending machine's Professor Salty logo. Killua swallows gulps of Alligade like a soon-to-be diabetic fish in between flicking peanut shells into Gon's collar when he thinks Gon isn't looking. He looks devious and he doesn’t have the strength to protest that anyone could walk by, though he tries. He tastes sweet once more.

Gon explains what happened.

"Imferesfing feory," Killua concurs through a mouth full of chocolate nougat, "Not sure if he's correct. I think it mighta had more to do with the fact that I was totally drained. I mean it - I blacked out in the duct for a couple of minutes on the way back. I almost couldn't do it. Was way harder than I thought it was gonna be."

"Are you okay?"

"Tch. Yeah. Of course." Killua's skin heats up - more mildly, this time. "Those are the breaks, when you're working alone."

That's fine, then, Gon decides. Killua is never going to do that alone again.

Leorio won't let Killua go until he has a clean bill of health. He's irate enough at Gon for hopping around on his ankle as it is. Kurapika will come up with some excuse - Killua's sick or hurt or has a personal emergency - he's a smart man, sometimes.

Killua is slower to recover and can't be seen in public, anyhow; it's Gon Leorio wishes he could put a leash on and tie to something.

After the fourth assault of ceaseless whining about boredom in stereo, Leorio moves to the clinic waiting room to study.

That night, however, Leorio discovers to his misfortune how they've decided to kill the time.

It begins with a smattering of whispers and an unusual amount of shifting. Leorio has - out of deference for the ill and injured - ceded the bottom bunk for their use and taken Gon's on top. The initial bout of heavy breathing is somewhat deniable, if he tries hard enough.

The muffled moans and grunts are not.

He languishes, briefly, in the delusion that this isn't really happening, though what it would mean if he'd dreamt it Leorio doesn't care to interrogate. It lasts a handful of minutes at most and Leorio is thankful for small mercies.

He's made up his mind to purge it from his memory and is nearly asleep when, ten minutes later, it begins again.

And again for a few minutes fifteen minutes after that.

And again for about forty-five seconds.

On the fifth round Leorio considers the trajectory of hurling a pillow at them - one-handed, he wouldn't have to look down over the edge. After this fails to have any effect on his target, and the sixth round is underway, Leorio plucks up the nerve to lean over the side to swat them himself.

Or at least, he would have.

Gon fixes him with a hard stare. Killua, who is face down with his fists balled in the pillow, does not see him.

Gon raises a finger to his own lips. His hips do not stop. His eyes remain locked on Leorio's until Leorio retreats back over the lip of the bed, out of sight.

Leorio listens to less-than-quiet murmurs about how good Killua feels and prays for the ship to sink.

Gon rouses himself unusually late the next morning, drowsy and very content. Killua doesn't have a change of clothes down here and Gon doesn't have a change of clothes at the best of times so theirs lay in a pile at the end of the bed, along with a towel that Gon has considerately folded in on itself.

Leorio is at the desk. There are books and charts and a medical model - he must be studying. It's bright; Gon blinks blearily. Something smells like danger.

Killua is already awake. Killua is afraid.

Leorio revolves in his chair to face them, slowly.

The dark bags of a haunted man dangle under his eyes. "This was the last straw, Gon."

"Why don't you sleep in the waiting room?" Gon suggests.

"This is _my_ room. This is where I sleep. This is where I get to sleep, Gon." Leorio's tone threads the needle between deranged and ominously calm.

"Oh no. Oh fuck," Killua whispers behind Gon, but in his present condition the most heroic effort he can muster is to crawl to the furthest, dimmest corner of the bunk, rather than neck chop them both into unconsciousness and flee.

Gon is undaunted. "If you can masturbate while I'm the room, why can't I have sex with Killua?"

Scarcely restrained fury leaks from every single one of Leorio's pores. "Listen, kid." He scruffs Gon by the back of his neck. "Me. Watching porn with the _sound off_. _After_ I make _sure_ you're asleep. Is not. The same. As you raw dogging someone three feet from my head."

Killua crawls under the blanket and longs for death. 

"Okay. We won't do it while you're in the room," Gon offers, and somewhat means it.

"Oh, no. No, no, no. That is not the road to your absolution." Leorio's lenses gleam murderously under the lights. "I realized, after a few _hours_ , that this was in fact a cry for help."

Gon blinks. Killua groans.

"Someone should have done this a long time ago. But since your parents, the school system, and _God himself_ has failed you, I will be his emissary."

Leorio reaches for his model. "Today, we're all going to learn about the human body."

In the wake of his sister's visit, Prince Tserriednich withdraws from public life. Aside from a single phone call to Taithon during which he was evidently rebuffed, he has made no attempt to contact his other siblings. Rumors are rife amongst the other princes: has he merely taken a pause from the game to marshal his strength and wits, or has he abandoned it altogether? Other conjecture is even more bizarre - those whisperings that Taithon, of all people, convinced him to do this with nothing more than a book and a gentle lecture.

Tubeppa burns her copy. Halkenburg, having heard that his sister is much more subdued of late, invites her for another friendly conversation. When his offer is declined, he writes her a heartfelt letter extolling the virtues of innocence, femininity, and care for others. Taithon does not respond, but does paint her room pink.

Or so Kurapika has managed to glean from those recordings set up by Killua that are still active. The system is simple enough to parse when he puts his mind to it - for all he is one of the last remaining digital non-natives, Kurapika has adapted admirably to technology - but he cannot switch feeds at a touch as Killua can. He cannot redirect them with nen alone, and his knowledge of the back end of electronics is less than marginal. Nor can he absorb the images he does see at superhuman speed.

And, unlike Killua, Kurapika must sleep.

This frustrates him endlessly. He tries to circumvent this requirement with caffeine - Oito has neither the vice nor the connections needed to acquire anything more effective - which proves unsustainable when his hands shake so badly he can no longer sign a letter nor keep to his own admonition not to relieve oneself during his nen lesson. Bill, reluctant yet understanding, provides him with an escort to the washroom lest there be snakes.

After Kurapika collapses for the third time on the voyage, Melody comes to visit him at his sickbed. He reflects, not for the first time, that his path in life would have been easier had his parents been less kind.

"It's very nice of Oito to let you stay in her room," Melody remarks.

Kurapika does not bother to point out that Oito - and Woble for that matter - would be long dead if not for him. Instead, he says, "Where is Killua, really?"

"On Tier 3, really." 

Melody has been sworn to secrecy on this point by both of the young lovers, one somewhat more sternly than the other. Killua overtaxed himself in support of their mission and is now quite unwell. He does not trust the Princes' doctors and has gone to seek help from Leorio. This is all entirely true.

Kurapika's reply is sharp and flat and acerbic all at once: "I know where he went."

Killua might move too rapidly for the human eye - most human eyes - but the camera still catches him in some of its frames. The trail of sparks he leaves in his wake is visible to _gyo_. Kurapika has gone through all of the footage of that afternoon by the second.

Melody makes no comment. Kurapika sighs. "I know they mean well." It would not be the first time, so well-meaning, that they have interfered with his plans. "But I cannot wait for them."

Melody is not amenable to his decision to pounce while his opponent is down, he knows; yet, he will likely never get a better chance than this. Tserriednich will only be left reeling so long before he regroups. Before he takes action to fortify his person or his belongings, or worse, develops another nen ability. Kurapika can't know when Gon and Killua will return; there are only so many weeks left in the voyage, and besides, "I no longer trust them, either."

Concealing the presence of the Spiders was a bridge too far. Whatever good they might have intended by it, so is paved the path to hell.

"You're going to do it no matter what I say," Melody observes, "They wouldn't want you to die, so... You can't attack him. And you can't lie to him." 

"Those sound like conditions. Does he have another ability?"

"No. He has a nen beast. Two of them."

Kurapika is, for a moment, astounded by how unforgivably obvious this fact is. So many of the Princes have died or been attacked with their nen beasts apparently unconcerned that he had thought perhaps they could be disregarded. Killua might deceive him; Melody would not.

Oito joins them to see how Kurapika is feeling. When Melody leaves, she inquires as to whether Melody is a coworker, a sister, a friend, or...?

"An employee," says Kurapika, though he does not mean it.

Kurapika will rise to this challenge the same as he has all of the others that stood in his way. From his bed, at his screens, he watches and waits. Until he learns from one of them Tserriednich is at last receiving visitors: attractive young women from the lower Tiers, to his bedchamber, who are never seen again.

Now is the time to strike.

Killua will neck chop Leorio so hard he goes down for a month if he tries that again, he promises Gon. Gon wonders if Leorio might be able to defend himself from Killua, given the state he's in; Killua balks. 

Despite the fact that Gon sees him lean on the backs of the chair or the desk if he stands for too long. Despite how heavily he sleeps and how slow he is to get up again. Gon knows he's still at a fraction of his strength. Gon doesn't know what it's like to take so long to recover from anything - Gon can already hop up the stairs.

Gon isn't displeased with this at all. Killua will be fine; this means Killua needs to spend more time with him, that's all. Killua can splash around in the too-small bath with him, just like they used to. Killua can talk with him for hours about everything going on during the Succession: it makes Gon's head spin, even when Killua draws him a picture with arrows. Gon can tell him about his new friends. About how to collect protection money, and how to play Jive Jive Insurgency. 

"That's a girl's game, Gon." Killua makes a face. "The only guy I know who's into it is my kid brother."

They can pore over Leorio's textbooks for the pictures that are gross or weird. Try on Leorio's suits; Killua knows how to tie a tie, for some reason. More than one way, too. Gon supposes it's important for an assassin to be able to tie knots. When he forgets his laptop, Killua suggests they search Leorio's harddrive for all of his dirty pictures. Killua is more interested in the girls than Gon thought he would be. Killua complains that almost none of them could even pass for his or Gon's age. He's not into "milfs", whatever those might be. Gon must be, though, Killua suggests with a leer.

Gon scrolls through photographs of some very nice-looking women who seem to be having a good time. Killua is breathing very hard. Gon closes the laptop.

By now, Leorio has learned to knock.

Killua is asleep; Gon pulls the blanket up to waist height. 

Leorio ruffles Killua's hair. "He's clear to go tomorrow. If he wants."

Gon doesn't realize that his fingers have tightened in the sheets until Leorio looks at them. "Hey. You're going to stick around with him for a while, aren't you?"

Leorio doesn't mean for the voyage. Gon nods. 

"Get him to lay off the sweets. Make sure he brushes his teeth. His molars are a nightmare. And for god's sake, let him _sleep_. I know he's been trained to stay up for days - that doesn't mean he _should_. Doctor's orders. This wouldn't have been half as bad if his immune system wasn't in shambles from pulling all-week-ers doing whatever it is Kurapika's got him doing."

Even though it will probably be annoying, Gon agrees. Leorio has brought something as a reward: some blue-eyed gangster asked about Gon, and when Leorio told him he was sick, he foisted a bottle off on him. Leorio suspects it's the paint-stripping moonshine the passengers have begun to distill out of compost on Tier 5; with one whiff, Gon knows better. This is from Sun-bin's private stash of haijiu. 

They spend the last night all three of them will be together aboard the Black Whale drinking it.

Gon and Leorio get rowdy; they wake Killua when Leorio leans so far back in his chair to take a shot that it topples. Leorio insists that Killua shouldn't drink in his state; Killua protests that if Gon can drink, he should be allowed. Gon sees the sly smile that lurks behind Killua's perfect picture of brash innocence when Killua suggests that he can outdrink Leorio, in fact. Leorio, a seasoned veteran of scores of college parties who has been drinking before Killua could spell his own name, disagrees.

Leorio must have already been very drunk to forget that alcohol is poison.

They play loud music on Leorio's laptop and sing even louder. Leorio gets them vending machine beers and shows them how to crush the cans against their heads. Killua pokes a hole in his with a claw. They dare Leorio to go out for the next round shirtless with his tie around his head; he lost, so he has to. Someone bangs on their door for a while. It's one of Mizai's friends. They have to be quieter or they're going to spend the night in the brig. 

Leorio smooths this over, somehow, with more haijiu. Then he falls on the floor and tells them all about his childhood for a long time. Gon drags him into the washroom, where he stays for the rest of the night, hugging the toilet. Gon gives him Alligade and makes sure he isn't dead.

Gon stays awake as long as he can, arms around Killua. Killua's back is to him, and he doesn't say anything for so long Gon thinks he's fallen asleep again.

Killua breathes out slowly. "This sucks." 

It does. This is how it should have been the whole time. They should have done this together - why did they agree to split up in the first place? Killua could have helped him stalk the Phantom Troupe. Killua could have had fun with his brother. Gon could have had more training with Bisky. Gon could have found another way to get Kurapika's eyes for him. "I wish you could see the waterslide."

"Me too."

"When we drop the princes off on the New Continent you can go anywhere you want," Gon declares.

Killua chuckles. "They're not gonna waste power on the waterslide when it's just the Hunters, dumbass."

Gon prods him. "So turn it on yourself."

"Huh. Yeah, guess I could. Hey, we'd have the whole place to ourselves."

Gon knows they will.

Leorio goes to work late and returns early, with sunken eyes, a searing headache, and impenetrably black coffee. Killua is stretching; Gon is taming his hair for the trip back up to Tier 1. They've already decided they're going to race.

"Please don't hurt yourselves," Leorio groans, and leaves the 'again' unsaid. "I brought you a going-away present and everything."

Gon brightens, curious; Killua frowns suspiciously.

"We don't need anymore lectures about the birds and the bees, old man. You can shove them up your own--"

Leorio's mental calculations as to whether or not he should slap his patient - and whether or not he should do it with nen - are so visibly obvious that even Killua falters long enough for him to wrest a case from the pocket of his scrubs. Inside are two capped syringes filled with clear fluid.

Both boys peer, blinking.

"What is it?" Killua asks.

"You're looking at the world's very first nen beast antivenom." Leorio holds them aloft. "So far as I know, anyway."

"How?" Gon asks.

"Exactly how you make any antivenom - to snakes, spiders, anything. Challenge a subject's immune system to a non-lethal dose and extract the antibodies from their serum. Only instead of a rabbit, I had a larger fluffy white animal."

Gon opens his mouth.

"He means me."

Gon closes it.

"Could you do that with anything I'm immune to?" Killua looks thoughtful.

"Probably. Anything antigenic, at least."

Leorio has to do his rounds; he leaves them with their gift and a pair of awkward hugs. Gon and Killua sit on the bed, the set of syringes between them.

"I still don't want Kurapika to have to kill anybody," Killua says, at last.

Gon doesn't lift his gaze from his own hands. "Me neither."

Another long silence follows.

Killua breaks it again: "I can think of one person who does deserve to decide whether Tserriednich lives or dies, though."

_The Mark - September 13th 11:00-11:43 PM_

The Prince himself has seen better days. A face that Kurapika would otherwise have found passably handsome is frayed by sleepless nights. His most recent shave was poor. A sheen of grease along the part of his hair reflects the dimmed lights of his private bedchamber.

They sit side-by-side on the loveseat across from his bed's end table. Upon it is a bottle of Immaculate Red from East Gorteau, two glasses, and a bowl of powerfully ripe black grapes. Kurapika sits with his knees demurely closed.

"I recognize your voice," Tserriednich begins, "You're the woman who announced the presence of nen beasts on the intercom. Who fired the starter pistol of our game of inheritance. An act of selflessness, or a calculated risk? I wonder."

Behind Tserriednich his nen beasts languish: one a bloated horse with a woman's head that flops and lurches on a broken neck. The other that defies description, with a maw in the center of its torso like a starfish, yawning perilously into void and lined with incisors.

The horse approaches Kurapika. Its head drags across the decorative, ornate carpets; the curls of its long hair rasp, and its skull thumps on every change in elevation. It lolls to peer up at him, one-eyed.

_Lie to him and perish._

Kurapika steels himself against swaying when he nods. "I failed to consider the consequences."

"Don't be so humble." Tserriednich's fingers slide smoothly along Kurapika's freshly waxed cheek. "We both know you're a woman of talent. A Hunter." Those fingers tense: they cup Kurapika's chin and direct it toward the Prince's own. "And one of Woble's guards."

Tserriednich's smile is as broad as it is merciless. "This is my fate, I suppose: that my sisters vex me the most. Though you make for a most fetching assassin."

Between Tserriednich’s fingers, Kurapika’s expression is unperturbed. "I have no intention of harming you."

The horse's eye blinks.

"Oh?" Tserriednich releases him, and lounges back against the opposite armrest. "In that case, hand over your chains."

Kurapika himself blinks; comprehension filters through sluggishly, and when he realizes what Tserriednich is asking, he suppresses a laugh with a cough. Obediently, he removes his gloves and jacket. Slides the chains off ring by ring and places the bracelet-bound mass in the center of the table. They clink and rattle. The links glint when Tserriednich holds them up.

Kurapika can still taste metal in his mouth; feel the connections pinch his tongue. Izunavi was a masterful teacher.

Tserriednich cannot fit the bracelet over his knuckles. He places the set into his pocket when he tires of them.

"Then tell me: why did you come here?"

"To make you an offer."

Tserriednich arches a brow, intrigued. "Oh?"

The horse stares. The maw gapes.

Kurapika's eyes blaze scarlet.

"I am the last surviving Kurta. You know of us. How our irises turn red when we experience strong emotions. I am offering you another priceless set. _If_ you win."

“And how do I win?”

The glow diminishes. “By getting that colour to return. Within three hours. Should you fail to do so, you will relinquish the rest of your collection. Should you succeed, you may have mine to add to it. By whatever means you deem fit.”

Tserriednich’s grin, impossibly, widens. The horse snorts, bridled with malice. The other creature is unknowable.

Three hours is far longer than Kurapika needs. The result of calculations done on the back of a mechanic’s checklist while Kurapika himself had wiped his mouth and straightened his collar. The ship’s crew has been formally instructed not to interfere; each has the tacit understanding, from King Nasubi himself, however, that the princes may employ subterfuge and cleverness and should they do so, they should not be refused.

After all, the question Kurapika asked was purely theoretically. He has no means of accomplishing it. He couldn’t possibly. The ship’s systems - as with most modern vessels - are controlled via a central monitoring system accessible only to the crew. Nearby panels allow for finely detailed management of each subsystem, and provide this information to the bridge in broad strokes. These include the time for which each engine is fired, motor is run, and generator is powered. How each is ventilated, and where.

Killua had created a master controller for all of these systems present on Tier 1. He left with it intact. After Kurapika realized he had been deceived, he scoured every item Killua owned, even if he had to tear it apart, until he found the engineering plan Gon and Killua made such thorough use of. And more: the electrical network diagram that Killua has since drawn.

The last piece of the puzzle was located in the medical bay turned Hunter conference room. Illumi was long gone. It lay stacked inside a locked cabinet Kurapika bashed open with a wrench. 

Kurapika had surmised as much. Aboard a ship with nowhere to run save the vast ocean, there is only one kind of medicine a clinician would bother to secure.

For once Kurapika wished he could call Leorio. He has read much about drugs and their doses, in the abstract; ultimately, the one he took was his own best guess.

Like as not Tserriednich assumes that Kurapika is avoiding the wine because he thinks it’s poisoned. 

Ah, well, if Kurapika has overdosed, that will be a problem for Oito’s doctor. It’s difficult to worry about it now: it’s difficult to worry about anything at all. Tserriednich is still handsome, in his own way, now that he thinks about it. The droopy horse is endearing, like a badly handmade but well-loved doll. The other… one.... Looks a bit like the tasseled toys from Kurtan festivals made of leather and filled with candy.

The suite truly is beautiful, too: in a classical, heavily ornamented way with detailed carvings and plush velvet drapes. A far cry from the streamlined elegance of Mafioso tastes. Come to think of it, the whole ship is beautiful. Like a young child’s drawing of what a ship ought to look like. Utterly adorable. And the ocean! Kurapika ought to go out to see it.

Tserriednich is saying something, and Kurapika is trying not to laugh. He is looming over him on the loveseat; most men loom over Kurapika, and that is exactly what will be Tserriednich’s downfall.

It’s so, so sweet that his nen beasts think that deception and aggression are the only ways to hurt someone.

The opioids were insurance. The simple fact is that, due to his size, given the same level of physical fitness and activity, Tserriednich will breathe more than Kurapika does even without them. The doors are closed, and there are no windows. _A room that size, with two occupants? About an hour. Hour and a half at most._

They also made it difficult to lose. The demonstration of his scarlet eyes took monumental willpower - a thorough dredging of his worst memories - to accomplish. Not that he thinks Tserriednich will let him win; Kurapika need only watch the hands turn on a clock that Tserriednich can’t see.

_Gon frowns. “I didn’t think you’d want anybody else to die, either.”_

_“Nobody’s gonna.” Killua snatches a piece of paper off of Leorio’s desk. “All we need is one more prescription.”_

_When he’s done sketching, Killua flips it around with a playful smirk._

_Gon’s frown turns quizzical. “Aren’t these illegal here?”_

_“They’re illegal everywhere. But your new friends’ll be able to hook you up. Trust me.”_

Tserriednich begins with tragedy. He implores Kurapika to recount the slaughter of the Kurtas and savours every detail. Kurapika is grateful for his failsafe; he might have lost the game immediately otherwise. Tserriednich inquires about his childhood and how he survived cast adrift from his people at such a tender age. Kurapika cannot lie.

Years ago, this would have caused him to lose the game, too. But it doesn’t matter now what Tserriednich knows about his people. They’re gone from this world: all that matters is that they’re laid to rest.

When Kurapika is finished describing in detail his lowest lows to eat and not to be eaten, Tserriednich starts to tell his own stories. 

Halfway through the first, Kurapika knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Tserriednich has no intention of ever letting him leave this place. He also knows that Tserriednich’s guards are well out of earshot of casual conversation. 

They are for the most part grown women, albeit very young. The girls are more rare; for special occasions. Tserriednich remembers every word they said and how every part of their bodies were shaped in astonishing particularity. The minutiae of fingernails, of nipples, of blood vessels. There was one boy, with alabaster skin.

Yes, Kurapika would have lost this game unrigged. But he is accustomed to wagers with even thinner margins.

While Tserriednich speaks his hands roam over Kurapika. They clasp his thigh and stroke his stomach and hook into his waistband. Tserriednich crosses his legs out of pretense that the bulge in his pants hasn’t grown thicker, nor his voice more strained. 

This is good. Anything to make his heart rate faster.

When Tserriednich finally gives in and tries to choke him, Tserriednich’s movements are so sluggish that Kurapika ducks them easily and darts out past the end table.

A foot or two, perhaps. Before his vision fills with grey dots, his cheeks drain, and the next thing Kurapika knows, are pressed against the soft carpet.

Tserriednich’s own first attempt to rise is aborted. “What did you _do_ to me,” he growls, clutching his furrowed brow.

His second attempt succeeds through force of will: Tserriednich makes it all the way to his feet before toppling, slowly, like a felled tree onto the end table itself. It remains admirably intact; the bottle and glasses do not. Kurapika is struck in the face by a shower of grapes.

Kurapika makes it halfway up to his elbows before his trembling arms give out on him.   
Dimly, he realizes what he has not considered: the fact that he has slept and eaten poorly for months and has not exercised in weeks, while Tserriednich has languished in luxury.

Gasping, grunting, Tserriednich rises on all fours. Uses his considerably stronger arms and the armrest to pull himself upright, and to stand. His shirt is deeply wine-stained; broken glass glitters in his hair. His sneer at Kurapika’s prone form bares teeth. 

“No matter. Any means I deem fit, hm? Let me show you what I’ll do to you.” 

Tserriednich shambles the handful of meters to a plush wall-hanging. He yanks it down; the glow that thick material had once concealed tints their enclosure with scarlet. 

Kurapika scarcely notices the eyes. He sees the head, and his gaze paints the whole room crimson.

Tserriednich laughs aloud, delighted. “Oh, this? This was all it took?” He unseals the tank and reaches inward. Seizes the Pairo’s scalp by the hair. Turns it to its best advantage for Kurapika, a thumb to its cheek. “Someone you knew, I presume. Let me reacquaint you.”

Nothing Kurapika could have done to himself, nothing he could have taken, could have dulled the rage he feels at the sight of his old friend’s face behind glass; Pairo is the reason Kurapika left his people; the reason he survived their extermination; Kurapika is the reason Pairo _didn’t_. The indignity of watching Pairo’s head carried by the hair, swinging, like an inanimate _thing_ ignites such fury that Kurapika trembles. That his fingernails slice his palms bloody. Kurapika has by now figured out how Killua ripped a man’s heart out through his chest and is certain he could reproduce it.

Beside him, the horse’s forked eye-tongue flicks out of her mouth in warning: do not lie to him. Do not attack him.

Tserriednich lurches toward him, dragging his feet, relentless, beautifically joyful.

Kurapika’s mind is blank with hatred: the weight of putting his kin to rest balanced against the opportunity to murder Tserriednich before the prince’s nen beasts kill him. 

Tserriednich trips on his own uneven carpets.

He falls badly, winded, to the crunch of an unwisely placed elbow and the splat of fat black grapes. Pairo’s head bounces once and rolls under the bed.

The scarlet eyes are not merely aesthetic. They imbue Kurapika with the strength to clamber to his knees, with the help of the end table. To crawl away from Tserriednich, around the other side of the bed. Tserriednich, limping and spitting, gives chase. Kurapika heaves himself up onto the bed and drags himself across the mattress to the other side. Tserriednich crawls after him.

Had Kurapika not stopped to fetch Pairo’s head, he might well have made it to the eyes. Perhaps even to the door.

Instead, the moment he draws it out by the ear he is flattened to his belly by Tserriednich’s weight in what could have been intended as a tackle.

Kurapika immediately protects his throat with both arms.

Tserriednich, who had indeed intended to wrap his uninjured arm around Kurapika’s neck from behind, snarls and flips him over. Kurapika’s arms stay where they are. Tserriednich is more than strong enough to prise one of his wrists away, but not both, not one-handed. He tries gouging Kurapika’s eyes - Kurapika moves one of his arms and covers the eye Tserriednich targets with a hand. When Tserriednich manages to force a thumb beneath it, Kurapika uses both.

Tserriednich employs his wounded arm, too, grunting and gnashing at the pain. This succeeds in pinning the much smaller man, but leaves him at a loss for what to do next - what he can do next, without releasing him and starting from scratch. 

Tserriednich still has his teeth. Kurapika’s throat and eyes are now unguarded. Kurapika realizes this too late, and brings his head up protectively so that his forehead makes hard contact with Tserriednich’s nose. 

The fine splatter of blood that mists across Kurapika’s temple roots him to the spot. Tserriednich hisses and recoils, clutching his face protectively.

The nen beasts do not move.

The realization is lightning down Kurapika’s spine; it flattens his lips tight in something like a smile. Kurapika did not attack Tserriednich. Tserriednich hurt himself on Kurapika’s head.

The next time Tserriednich reaches for him, Kurapika’s fingers are at the painful pressure point in his upper arm. When he resettles to re-pin him, Kurapika’s knee is where his groin will be. Kurapika’s fingers curl in Tserriednich’s hair to keep his face away and if he chooses to move his head, so be it.

For Tserriednich has never been in a real fight in his life. True, he has built his body and sometimes sparred, but none would dare lay a hand on the Fourth Prince of Kakin. His servants drug his victims and he takes them unawares; had he not, he might have been prepared for all the ways Kurapika could hurt him, and his size and instinctive nen talent might have carried the day.

Kurapika has spent his whole life fighting. Anyone who insulted him, anyone who insulted his parents, anyone who insulted Pairo, anyone who tried to take from him and told him what he could not take, anyone who stood in his way, anyone who spoke ill of his long-dead clan, and in his sole moment of absolute catharsis, one of the Spiders.

Uvogin was much larger than him, too.

Tserriednich begins to pant in frustration; Kurapika begins to laugh. 

“Shut your mouth, bitch,” Tserriednich spits and does manage to get one good hit in with what could have been a punch or a slap - either way, he hurts his own fist as much as he does Kurapika’s face. 

A few more hits land before Tserriednich realizes he should put his weight behind them; when he does so Kurapika ducks them.

This knocks Tserriednich off-balance and where he begins to topple Kurapika has set two hooked fingers in the place his eye will be.

Tserriednich rears backwards; Kurapika scrambles backwards himself. He pumps his feet hard and fast and if any vulnerable low-lying areas of Tserriednich’s body make contact with them he can’t be blamed, can he? He rolls over as soon as he wins free, grabs Pairo’s head, and resumes his crawl.

Tserriednich pours the last of his waning energy into a final lunge. He seizes Kurapika’s hair and yanks viciously, whole strands wrapped around his knuckles.

The wig comes off along with its bobby pins, attached to a generous number of strands from Kurapika’s own head. Kurapika does not even feel it.

He does feel one last fumbling, pathetic attempt to grab his foot; Kurapika kicks his shoe off and continues.

Tserriednich’s pride will at last allow him to call for help. When he does so Kurapika smothers those words with a scream, having surmised correctly that Tserriednich’s guards will have been instructed to ignore Kurapika’s own cries.

Tserriednich collapses.

Kurapika is still laughing.

He drags himself over to the eyes, the last of the eyes. Mirrors them with his light and the blood from the prince and the blood between his teeth. Chains re-coil themselves around his fingers.  
Kurapika is in the midst of breaking every container open in order to consolidate the eyes into a single jar that he can carry when one of Tserriednich’s guards enters the room.

Had Kurapika been fewer seconds away from unconsciousness, and far less sluggish, he would have killed her with nen on the spot.

He watches, perplexed, as she strangles Tserriednich, then asks, “Are you alright, miss?”

The horse strokes her with its dangling eye-tongue. Nothing happens.

“Yes.”

“Thank god.” The woman rolls up Tserriednich’s body in a carpet. “Can I borrow your wig?”

She drags it to the door, which she raps in a distinctive pattern. The voice on the other side chuckles: “Took you long enough. Wild one this time, eh, your highness?”

When the door cracks open, the wig proves a sufficient distraction to prevent the other guard from recognizing the wrongness of the body size long enough for Theta to shoot him with the handheld repeating crossbow concealed in her suit.

Twice in the chest, once in the head, just like Killua taught her.

They pile one of the bodies into the laundry cart Killua has rolled in front of the suite; Killua himself takes the other and carries it faster than the human eye can follow through the hallways and out to the deck. He returns for Kurapika. Then Theta. Gon, dressed in a manservant’s robe pilfered from the drier, calmly pushes the cart out to the deck as well.

Kurapika goes to the infirmary to take a long nap with a bottle of oxygen.

It takes them a bit of trial and error to get the weighting of the bodies right. “Butlers usually handle this crap,” protests Killua in his defense. In the end they drop them over the side lashed to the anchor.

After Theta has put her affairs in order, checked on Kurapika, and said her goodbyes to Salkov, she joins them. The Black Whale is heading due east; the sun sets over its stern. 

“You really found somebody willing to take me in?” Assassinating a Prince of Kakin would be an offence so grave that even the Association would disavow her; if caught, her death sentence would be guaranteed.

“Take in a Pro Hunter already trained in nen?” Killua nods. “Sure. Hope you don’t mind rose tattoos.”

“I’ll do what I’ve got to. I still don’t get it, though,” Theta protests, “I mean - I know you were hired by Oito. I know you’ve got a stake in the Succession. But why all this - why help _me_?”

Killua leans back from the railing to smile at her. “You’re not a fighter, are you. That’s why you used a gun the first time. Anybody with nen’s got a billion ways to kill someone in _zetsu_ that are way more discreet, but you weren’t sure you could. I bet your ability’s pure support. You tried anyway. You knew they’d hear the gunshot - you knew it’d probably be the last thing you ever did. And under all that pressure, you still got a headshot on the first try. That’s so fucking _cool_.”

Gon smiles along with him. He thinks of Ikalgo, and wonders if this will be a problem if Killua ever has to fight someone else he admires.

_”Yep, figured. He’s still ticking.” Killua removes his hand from the side of Tserriednich’s throat. “You have to wait a while until they kick it. Nobody gets it right on the first try.”_

_Gon and Killua know that they will have a few minutes, at least, until Theta’s return. Kurapika will be using the infirmary for some time. There are countless other unoccupied storage rooms._

_Killua moves his hand to the top of Tserriednich’s head, standing behind him, while Gon holds the prince’s torso upright. “Not too many lights on. I don’t think he’s long for this world.”_

_“Good.”_

_“Yeah.”_

_A zap that makes Gon’s own fingertips tingle wrenches Tserriednich back into consciousness. His eyes are vacant and his mouth is slack._

_“So, last time,” Killua says, thinking aloud, “I just kinda did the thing I wanted him to do. Then copied that pattern from my brain onto his. For this experiment it’s something I’m not doing. I’ll have to guess at the pattern a bit.”_

_“Are you sure you can?” Gon asks._

_“I’ve tortured more people to death than he has,” Killua states without emotion, “You ready?”_

_Gon nods. He lays his free hand on top of Killua’s._

_The transition is no longer jarring. The blending of their auras is turbulent only at the outset; two fluids poured into one vessel, they cloud one another, stir, and then settle._

_Killua goes to work. It is far too fast and too complex for Gon: it is as delicate and precise as the fine mesh of Leorio’s healing, but on the scale of a thousand spider’s webs built with the speed of a hummingbird’s wings. Killua responds to changes in Tserriednich’s thoughts in real time. The prince raises one hand. Lowers it._

_Killua’s lip curls. Wavers._

_Even now, even in this state, Tserriednich can to some degree resist him. Gon sees why Killua burned through all of his aura, to the point of collapse and further, just to get him to speak. The differences in their innate talent are that stark._

_But why, though? He and Killua had to go through so many hardships to get to where they are. They nearly died, swallowed whole, the first day they met. Hanzo broke Gon’s bones and his first challenging opponent in Heaven’s Arena nearly broke his body. Through nothing more than wits and guts they fought enemies much more powerful than they were and came out on top. Sometimes. Sometimes they didn’t. They were beaten down so many times. They got back up. They endured Bisky’s grueling regimen, twice; Gon lost his arm, Gon lost--_

_Gon does not notice Tserriednich’s expression change._

_\--And Killua, Killua lost everything to be what he is. Why does one man get to be born with a talent - a talent he did_ nothing _to earn - that makes all of Killua’s pain worthless? How dare he, how dare he use it to hurt Killua, how_ dare _he, how dare he--_

__Killua coaxes Gon up, even though he’s the hurt one;

_How dare he--_

The blurry, water-stained image of the inside of the bathroom door of the berth Gon shares with Leorio;

_HOW DARE HE--_

_To one of absolute terror._

_Gon’s grip tightens. He doesn’t comprehend the intricacies. He doesn’t need to. He has one command, and he brands it into Tserriednich’s skull._

_BE LIKE KILLUA._

_Killua stumbles backward. He recovers quickly and is the first to clap his hand over Tserriednich’s mouth when Tserriednich begins to wail._

_Blood oozes from Tserriednich’s nose and ears. He stares down at his own hands with a look of bottomless self-hatred, and weeps._

_The confession they receive is garbled and barely human; Tserriednich’s heart fails part-way through from the brain hemorrhage._

_Killua stops the tape they’d set to record it. “We definitely need another field trial.”_

_“Is that even worth keeping?” Gon asks._

_“Couldn’t hurt.” Killua pockets it. “As legal evidence, it’s garbage. But maybe, if I get it to Halkenburg… Hey, are you okay? You should’ve let me do it. I told you: it doesn’t matter if I kill somebody.”_

_“We didn’t kill anyone,” Gon replies. He lets the body drop._


	7. Intimacy x and x Codependence - Part 6: Drowning | The Succession (14 September - 1 October 2001)

Gon returns to his berth to find a written request from Mizai inside a sealed envelope. It contains instructions as to what information Gon is to gather on the Cha-R's activities, if possible. It sounds very formal. It makes references to Gon's contract with the Hunter Association aboard this vessel; there are swaths of it he doesn't really understand. Killua isn't around to make sense of it either.

Gon tosses it in the trash. The Cha-R haven't done anything wrong. If Mizai had ever been down to Tier 5 - even once, which he hasn't - he'd know that. Sun-bin is Gon's friend. If Mizai wants to know what they're up to so badly, he can go make friends himself.

Gon takes it back out again ten minutes later. Paper is getting scarce toward the end of the voyage, and Mizai has only printed the request on one side. Leorio can use the back for study notes. Gon leaves it on his desk.

Gon's rounds on Tier 5 have gotten easier: its residents know both him and Leorio by now. They know that Leorio is there to help, doesn't have any valuables beyond his medical supplies, and that Gon has never once in six weeks lost a fight they know of. Many of them know Gon and Leorio by name. An old man whose eyesight Leorio saves after an encounter with the wrong type of alcohol tells Gon he'll have his tattoo in no time.

Theta's still itches, and smells like a wound. With her hair dyed black and shaved at the side, no tie, jewelry, and what Sun-bin calls shit-kicker boots, she looks like a completely different person. "I look like a teenager," she says, though it suits her.

Gon stays below after his shift. To celebrate Gon's renewed health, the boys are going to party, Sun-bin tells him, and Gon knows that this will be a fun night of mohjang, drinking, and maybe a few good brawls.

Gon thanks him for the haijiu. Sun-bin asks him if his prescription cured what ailed him.

"Oh. That wasn't for me. That was for my friend." The word 'friend' sounds strange applied to Killua for a reason Gon can't quantify, though it never has before. Why? Killua is his best friend in the whole world.

Even Sun-bin hears the strangeness. "For your 'friend', huh. The kid in the kimono? Heard she took out one of the Hei-Ly. Bad idea - Hei-Ly are crazy. Even crazier now that somebody's done in their patron. Guess it's not a problem for nen users like you two."

"Kalluto is a boy. And no, that's his brother. And, um, yeah, it did."

"Huh." Sun-bin spreads his hands amicably. "No judgement. Every man's got his own tastes. Say, if you've got an in with that kid - with the Troupe, I mean - wanna ask 'em if they'll help us out tonight? Mutual cooperation for mutual benefit."

Tier 5 is running out of food. The decks above are hoarding it. Sun-bin tells him not to worry, that he isn't asking Gon to shit where he eats - Tier 3 is out of bounds. Nobody needs the Association involved. They're just going to take a little piece of what the Xi-Yu owe them. He's sure the Troupe would like to eat - they're citizens of Tier 5, too, for now.

Kalluto and Feitan greet the prospect of a fight with relish. The rest seem downright bored by the offer. There are a lot of nice, fancy things in their hideout now. On their way out they pass Phinks carrying an oil-painted portrait of the king that looks very expensive.

"Nah," Phinks declines, "That'd be like squashing an-"

Gon opens his mouth.

"Don't fucking say it."

"Gon very good at ant-squashing," Feitan says for him, "Better than you, probably."

The Xi-Yu are ready for them about thirty seconds too late. It could have been an interesting rumble if they had caught the Cha-R on the stairs up; as it stands, Feitan rushes past the lookouts and the sentries before either blink. Gon does his best to keep up: at first, he puts down stragglers Feitan couldn't be bothered with - as more and more Xi-Yu realize what's happening, Gon gets the better deal, as their delayed reaction leads them to concentrate on him.

He can't tell who is a nen user and who isn't in a crowd like this: he obeys Bisky in spirit by sticking to _ken_ and _ko_ alone. When a _ko_ -infused punch to the chin sends a boy Gon's age flying twenty feet through storage shelves and he doesn't get back up again, Gon switches to just _ken_.

Gon can carry over a tonne of boxes by himself; Feitan helps him steady a pallet on his back and on the way back down they pass Kalluto, who is stomping the head of a woman with gleaming, nen-infused claws - pieces of which are scattered around the stairwell - against those stairs with bloody sandals.

"She scratched me," says Kalluto, and shows them his torn kimono sleeve.

"Good boy," says Feitan, pets Kalluto's hair, and presses their heads together. "You getting better."

The Cha-R triple the sentries on their own side of the stairwell, though Sun-bin guesses it'll take Xi-Yu a while to mount a reprisal. They might be completely dickless about it, he suggests, and try to get the Hei-Ly to help them. They're terrified of the Troupe.

Gon wonders if this will pose a problem getting back up through Tier 4 tomorrow. That is a problem for tomorrow's Gon, however, and tonight's Gon can't do anything about it. Tonight's Gon tries out that moonshine for himself. At the Cha-R headquarters, someone dusts off an ancient Maye Wrong CD for the stereo for karaoke.

To Gon's surprise, Feitan and Kalluto stick around. Gon isn't surprised that Kalluto knows how to play mohjang - Killua knows how to play every game - but is surprised that Feitan can. Feitan knows the lyrics to the songs, too, even the ones that aren't words.

Ittoku says something to Feitan that Gon doesn't understand. Gon doesn't understand Feitan's response either; Ittoku reacts with delight.

"What are they doing?" Gon asks Sun-bin.

"Being old men." Sun-bin clasps his shoulder. "Kakin didn't institute Standard until two generations ago."

"Standard what?" It must be some kind of signal.

Sun-bin glances from side to side and back to Gon, incredulous. Kalluto giggles behind a sleeve. "The, uh, language you and I are speaking," Sun-bin responds, as gently as he can. "You learned about that in, what, fourth grade?"

Gon shakes his head. "I wrote a report about fish."

"Damn." Sun-bin gives him a friendly shake. "Well, uh, Kakin has its own language. Used to. Just like most places used to."

Sun-bin teaches him a Kakinese word, and tells him it means 'backwater'. But that he shouldn't be ashamed of that, because Kakin is the backwater of the V6, and it'll be bigger and better than all of them someday.

Gon knows that Whale Island will never be bigger and better than anything. That's what he likes about it.

This new knowledge makes sense to Gon: the Red-Billed Moustache bird from the north side of Whale Island sings different songs from those in the south. He'd always wondered why people didn't. School, laws, and television, Sun-bin tells him. Gon notices that Sun-bin and the other Cha-R his age don't really understand a lot of what Ittoku and Feitan are saying. When they respond, it sounds different, too.

Gon walks Kalluto back to Spiders' hideout, Feitan on his back.

"If you didn't know about Kakinese," Kalluto inquires as Gon sets his load down on a plush tasseled throw rug, "Why did you think Feitan speaks like he does?"

"Aunt Mito said sometimes people have trouble talking. It's not polite to ask about it."

"You hear that Feitan?" says Phinks, "Gon thought you were r-"

Gon knows Feitan is speaking Kakinese now, when he spits and hurls a priceless blue-glazed dining set at Phinks. He says a lot of words very quickly and very angrily. Phinks blocks the dinner plate and the saucer, but not the teacup, which breaks against the side of his head.

" _Coins_ ," says Chrollo sharply, from a corner piled high with ornamental animal statues.

Feitan stumbles off to puke. Phinks pulls a salad fork out of his bicep.

Gon asks Kalluto if he would like to go on another date. Kalluto ushers him outside; something has changed. Out of earshot of the adults, Kalluto says, “I’m not interested in any more of my brothers’ leftovers. I have my own things now. Go make up with Kil.”

But why? “Killua isn’t mad at me.”

“Oh?” Kalluto seems puzzled. He blinks - then his eyes widen, as if he’s looking at the world with fresh eyes. “ _Oh_. Huh. Hm. Then, yes. _We_ will go on a date with you.”

Killua takes the state of disarray of his belongings better than Kurapika expects. Some aspect of his posture must betray this fact, as Killua tells him that it's okay, he likes him, and he knows he's desperate. They're all on the same team. It's just stuff.

Killua is less poker-faced when he catches Kurapika slipping out of Oito's private chamber in the early hours of the morning, long after he has recovered from his bout of self-inflicted carbon monoxide poisoning.

"I must start to think of the future, now," Kurapika says stiffly, and returns to his duties.

Dumbfounded, Killua is as ever unsure if his friend is an idiot or genius or a madman. Or all three. Royal Kakin protection might just be enough to see him safely back onto Nostrade family territory.

As a precaution, Killua locks out all access to the systems he's wired: there is no password, no button, no switch. It turns on only for nen-imbued electricity. By now, Bisky has told him that he is one of a handful of Transmuters alive who have mastered it, all decades older than he is.

When Killua enters the medical room to disassemble the surveillance setup for the nen heist, he stumbles upon his master, an unknown guard, and a situation he wishes he hadn't. He stumbles back out, and muses as to whether or not he could use his own ability to wipe it out of his brain.

They definitely noticed him, so there's no point in running; to the guard on his way out, he asks, "You know she's like sixty, right."

Who responds with an expression of amazement. "Really? That's incredible. She's _incredible_."

Killua gags behind his back, and returns, hands shoved into his pockets, to find Bisky back to her diminutive self and all of his wiring gone. He scowls. "Hey, we never said you could use this place without us." Especially not for anything gross.

"Oh? I don't see your name on it." Bisky hops down from the bed nonchalantly. "You're welcome, by the way."

"Sure sure. Whatever." Killua sticks out his chin. "Would've taken me a couple seconds to take down that stuff."

"I didn't mean that. I meant for getting the sheets washed for the first time in six weeks. _Everybody_ could smell it."

Bisky claps him on the shoulder on the way out.

Killua's cheeks flush so hot they hurt.

He's annoyed they have to find a new place - this one's unusable now, cursed - and Gon will just want to do it outside.

He tries to purge it from his mind - he has much more important things to think about. Kurapika's primary objective complete, it is time to play a purely defensive game. The outcome of the Succession is somewhat irrelevant: Oito simply wants Woble to survive, and multiple elder siblings intend to allow this, should they win. From an infant, forfeiting her claim should be enough for some.

But not for others. Especially not those who've studied history and who know just how much trouble any sibling with an equal claim to the throne can cause.

Killua knows that defense is usually easier than offense; he also knows that being forced into a purely reactive position puts them at a disadvantage. He finds himself falling back into old, familiar mental simulations: where, exactly, the gaps in Benjamin and Camilla's own defenses are, how he would exploit them, and how he would kill them.

He won't, of course. If he did, it would only be if he had to. Only if it was to defend someone else. Only if there was no other choice.

Maybe he and Gon could just make them surrender.

It is another thing that Killua doesn’t want to think about; within the information he gathers, he discovers a different distraction.

Kalluto visits Gon on Tier 3 a few times to show him that there are no hard feelings. Once, he brings Feitan along, and during their stroll of the amusement park with bubble tea, something about Killua's absence makes this more disagreeable than it should be. Particularly the way Kalluto clings to Feitan's every taciturn judgement of the mall - the way he goes to sit next to him, shoulder to shoulder, on the viewing platform. The mini-golf attendant tells Gon he's an upstanding young man for taking his little brother and sister out to play.

The light game is trivial now: Gon can hit almost every piece of paper Kalluto can summon before it hits the ground. He can hit about a hundred blindfolded. He holds off Kalluto and Feitan's attacks combined for over ten seconds: he accidentally gives Kalluto a bloody nose and Feitan whacks him with the pommel of his umbrella so hard Gon doesn't get back up again for a few seconds himself.

"It's okay," Kalluto offers diplomatically, holding a silk kerchief to his face. "It's a lot harder to control your strength when you're moving that quickly."

Gon remembers waking up days after Killua struck him, well outside of the NGL, for the same reason.

They practice until Kalluto pays him back in kind.

Gon passes Leorio and Machi lingering over coffee at the Strawbacks on their way to the stairwell. Leorio insists they are simply talking shop; Gon gives him a thumbs’ up, regardless.

The next time Gon and Killua meet it takes Killua a few minutes to pull his face away long enough to tell Gon he's got something special planned. Back inside the ship.

He counters Gon's crestfallen expression with a grin. "In a couple hours, I mean."

They are fashionably late to Hanzo's surprise party. The Hunters have borrowed the unused gala room: they've begged a few hours off their shifts or traded with the other guards, and sprung for chips, cake, and a selection of alcohol ranging from fine sake to beer that tastes like someone smushed Gon's mouth full of hops, then slapped it. Basho and Bisky down this with relish. Killua, innocuous, sips from a can of Professor Salty.

It's Hanzo's 20th birthday. Which, Killua tells Gon, has special importance in the islands of Jappon. He's legal age now. Which Killua further explains means he can drink, drive, vote, get married, star in porn, whatever. He's an adult. This seems really old to Gon, and Killua agrees. The Japponese value the elderly, or something.

Gon congratulates Hanzo on becoming a grown-up. Basho and Ridge reprise their rap battle. Gon has no idea who won; it's very exciting, though. Melody plays something that has notes like birdsong. Gon suggests they do karaoke; Killua says karaoke is for girls and drunk middle-aged men. Hanzo and Bisky do it, for some reason, regardless. The dj takes requests. Kurapika shows up for fifteen minutes, mutters an exhausted 'thank you' to Gon, shakes Hanzo's hand, and ducks back out before Izunavi can ask him to dance.

All of the moves Killua knows are really cool. Nothing like the slow dances Mito and the other women on Whale Island taught him. Gon tries one and ends up crashing into the chip table, to an equivalent number of laughs and boos. Gon shows Killua his moves and Killua reddens and becomes very quiet.

After they've dimmed the lights, and all of the Hunters have either left, drifted off to scattered private conversations of varying gravity, or slumped on the floor, Hanzo tracks Killua down where he sits in the corner with Gon's arms around him. Gon's jacket is draped around both of them; a few rapid adjustments are made during Hanzo’s approach.

"You have my thanks."

"For what?" Killua asks coyly.

"I might have different skills, but I have my own way of finding answers." Hanzo crouches down in front of them. "I know you were responsible for this."

Killua refuses to confirm or deny, so Hanzo rifles something out of his suit pocket. A flat piece of metal attached to a strip of shiny cloth. "Those in the shadows walk together," Hanzo says, and presses it into Killua's hands.

Gon blinks. "What is it?"

"It's a forehead protector." Killua sounds deeply unimpressed. "What do I need this for? Who cares if something hits me in the forehead? Why not protect your throat or something."

"I-It's _tradition_." Hanzo looks scandalized. He snatches it back and ties it around Killua's head. "Here, it'll keep your trendy hair back, at least. I don't need it."

"Bald already?" Killua smirks. "That was a short run."

"I shave my _head_ , you _know_ that." When Killua tugs it down around his neck instead, Hanzo throws his hands up in disgust, huffs something about pearls and pigs, and leaves the two of them be.

Killua doesn't take it off, though. Later Gon sees Killua looking in the mirror. He poses with his hand and fist pressed together.

Bisky awaits them outside the ballroom, can of Crabst First Place in hand. "Hope you enjoyed your vacation." She takes a delicate sip. "It's back to the grind. Ten times through the ship. First one to steal the captain's pen wins. Loser gets to tell me how deep the sewage we're all floating in is."

Killua is a dirty cheater who closes doors remotely on Gon; Bisky never said he couldn't. Gon responds by punching a hole in the hull and scrambling up to the bridge, bounding between floors. This isn't a real ship anyway, it's decorative. No one will mind. They arrive in a dead heat and are still scuffling over the pen when Bisky finds them.

So they both get dunked.

The chlorine can only do so much without rainwater; they can't afford to cycle in much of their limited freshwater stores, and desalination burns precious fuel. They discover that there are more corpses in the moat than the ones they put there, and not all of them are seabirds who found the wrong place to rest. It stinks like rot, chemicals, and engine grease, and so do they.

Bisky blessedly lets them take a shower. They make a pact to take turns losing.

Gon can fire off fifty Paper now; even Killua is impressed.

Bisky doesn't ask Killua to demonstrate anything. Gon wonders how much she knows.

Privately, Bisky asks Gon why he hasn't done what she asked of him in the first week: sneak up on Killua. His skills have improved to the point that he could make an honest go of it, now.

Gon knows that: he's followed Phinks and Franklin and Shizuku for an hour unaware. Nobu and Machi for half. Kalluto and Feitan for ten minutes. Chrollo for five.

"I'm not going to," says Gon. He is braced for her rebuke.

She crosses her arms. Strokes her chin. "Oh? Why's that?"

"He'll be scared of me forever."

The rebuke never comes. Instead, she nods, and tells him: "Alright. You two have my permission to spar."

The caution tape on the pump platform has turned into guardrails. Someone has been welding. It will make for more interesting terrain. Every attack must be made with _in_ , Bisky instructs them, from her perch atop the pipes they climbed nearby. Nothing can show to the naked eye. The first to be knocked off the platform loses.

"And," Bisky adds, "No matter what you are to one another. No matter what you become. When you fight, you will respect each other as much as you would any other opponent. You will show each other exactly as much mercy and as little quarter. Now and always."

"Ossssssu!" Gon and Killua agree. They can't wait to show each other what they've learned.

" _Begin_!"

Gon steps backward and to the left.

The tingle and rush of air that is Killua's presence wafts past him; Gon can _see_ some of what Killua does, at last, but more importantly, he can _predict_. Left puts Killua on the side of the guardrails, the opposite of what he would anticipate - a good uppercut would still knock him up and over.

Killua ducks and sweeps Gon's legs; Gon leaps and batters Killua's already raised _ken_ with a shower of invisible Paper followed by Scissors that meets a charged strike and ends in a shower of fiery sparks.

Corner and control. No reaction, just anticipation. Gon counters Killua's feints with his eyes unfocused, the whole picture of their battle in his mind.

Killua breaks out of Godspeed briefly, to pant, "That was _awesome_ ," before beginning to pace in a circle.

Gon knows what's next: rhythm echo at Killua's enhanced speed is maddening. Killua is impossible to find amidst all his shadows; he clips Gon's own _ken_ a dozen times. A decisive blow will be coming next, Gon knows: he still can't match Killua's knack for exploiting weaknesses. Killua is probing him. Looking for an opening.

Gon can't let him land it. With this, Killua has given him time. That was a mistake.

Gon has been charging Rock - concealed with _in_ \- since Killua's rhythm echo started.

Gon deploys it in a circle: a blast wave that encompasses the entirety of the platform and to Bisky's _gyo_ roars like an inferno. There is nowhere to go. It incinerates every afterimage until it finds the source, and intensifies, concentrates, explodes.

That he's just struck Killua with the force to level a building occurs to Gon after the fact, in the time between unleashing it and it landing in Killua's palms.

Metal screams. The air fizzles. Gon's hair stands on end. He smells smoke, cut steel, and ozone.

Gon's attack slows to a crawl in Killua's hands and deflects harmlessly off into the water.

While he's agape, Killua hurls Gon into the water next.

"The static electricity in the air produces drag," Killua tells him while he helps Gon towel off, "I just concentrate it until it softens whatever you throw at me."

"How'd you come up with that?" Gon is, once again, awestruck by how smart Killua is - when he sits down and puts his mind to it, Gon's certain that Killua can outscheme anybody alive.

"Oh you know, like, it's obvious, and-"

Bisky clears her throat.

"After taking a few punches," Killua adds, chagrined.

Gon flops back with his arms splayed. "No fair." He wishes he had as much time as Killua with their master.

"I'd give her to you if I could, trust me." 

“You will,” Bisky declares, and tells them that she’s decided to stay on until the Dark Continent. She doesn’t know if she’ll join the expedition itself; she wants to see this land of legend with her own eyes, at least. The three of them can train together until then. The whole of the Black Whale can be their arena.

Gon looks forward to it. 

Killua and Gon promise to go exploring when next they meet: at the New Continent.

They are days away from landfall when Kurapika is shaken awake at dawn. The weather has turned inclement; many of the staff are ill from the rocking of the ship that is Tier 1 atop the Black Whale. At first, Kurapika assumes he is being asked to take someone else’s shift.  
Killua stands at his bedside with the flat, calculating expression that Kurapika has learned means that something grave has happened. 

“The king’s dead,” Killua tells him, and by the light of a single lamp, his eyes are very black. “Somebody offed him.”

Through Killua's networks, Kurapika is one of the first to know. He informs Oito, quietly and privately; she sheds a few tears for her daughter's future. He tells Bill after, and together with Killua they begin to strategize.

Whispers from the rooms down the hall turn to murmurs in the corridors, which over the next hour build into furor. No public statement has been made: Kurapika observes grimly that, at best, he has one of the swiftest spies.

On Killua's screens the king's security personnel are agog with the improbability of it all. It would've taken one of the world's greatest assassins, a masterful nen user, with weeks of planning. They would never have let such a security threat aboard - at least, they never would have let one into Tier 1.

Kurapika stares at Killua long and hard. Killua stuffs his hands into his pockets. "I _really_ thought you guys would've done something about Illumi."

"I was otherwise engaged," Kurapika reminds him curtly, "He was your responsibility."

"Sure. Whatever."

Kurapika wants to tell Killua not to roll his eyes; he realizes Killua _didn't_ roll his eyes, and that demanding Killua not take that tone with him would not be productive. Killua does not like to be patronized. "What do you suggest?"

"Stay put until we get to the New Continent. Turn this place into a bunker. Don't even eat outside food. Nobody's got the authority to make you do anything or go anywhere."

Neither does Kurapika. "I'll take that under recommendation." He is too close to his goal to fail now.

Oito does not object to being told to lay low, however. "A few more days," she assures Woble, "Just a few more days."

When the announcement comes from the king's chief of staff that they are to meet in the gala hall to discuss the outcome of the Succession, Killua leans with his back against the suite door. "It's a trap," is all the advice he offers.

"Indeed," Kurapika agrees, "That's why you're going."

If the fate of the unsuccessful siblings is to be decided there, Woble requires a representative; she also requires a bodyguard. Killua is the one better suited to attend should trouble arise: he can use Godspeed to flee. Kurapika is far less capable against unspecific opponents.

"Yeah no shit," Killua concurs, although it is weird to hear his friend admit it. "This is recon, right? I'm not stumping for the baby to be King of Kakin." Or for Kurapika to be the king's stepfather.

Killua lurks at the fringes of the hall. Bisky joins him, sent by Prince Marayam in a similar capacity. No one else has sent a servant, however; it is deeply suspicious that Woble has, given that Kurapika is plainly in charge of her retinue. Those who already had misgivings about Killua now have them tenfold. "I'm fucked for the rest of this trip," he mutters to Bisky.

"Yep," she replies between subtle glimpses with _gyo_.

"They should forfeit their claims," declares Benjamin, impatience unbridled. His guards are out in force; he paces amongst them.

"They're _children_ ," Halkenburg retorts. The stands at the head of his own. "Their claims were forfeit the moment our father decided the Succession would happen _now_."

"Our father was King, he did as he saw fit," Zhang Lei offers, "Karma would defend those who deserved the title."

"Perhaps it did," Luzurus suggests, unnoticed.

"Karma?" Tubeppa's condescension is dry. "This is why the V6 thinks we're a backwater."

Benjamin rounds on her. "A King who is too weak to defend himself is too weak to defend the people from our enemies."

Tubeppa is unmoved. "Why should the King excel in murder--"

"In _WAR_ , sister!"

There is a wrongness in Benjamin's roar that the Hunters are the first to perceive. The other nen users are too rapt by the events of the game's final hour, and notice only later, when the Hunters have begun to whisper amongst themselves.

"When has it ever been the King's duty to bloody his hands in wars?" Halkenburg interjects, both with his words and his presence between his sister and looming elder brother. "Kakin's generals have dedicated their lives to its study. The King should rule wisely, and advocate for peace. If Kakin must fight, a good King defers to his betters."

"A coward makes men fight for him."

Camilla's titter is similarly strange. "Are you a coward, big brother?"

Threads of jet black nen rise from the floor like steam. They wind their way in wisps around the eldest siblings; they simmer in pools at the feet of the younger.

"The Princes can't see it," Bisky observes under her breath, "It isn't hidden, though."

"No, I-" Killua's brow is furrowed. At the waver in his voice, Bisky's gaze flicks to him. "I've seen it before."

"Around the Chimera Ants?" Just as Bisky suspected, the Kakin Royal Family uses Dark Continent n--

"Around Gon."

The words are scarcely audible: the discordant thundering of Killua's heart captures Melody's attention from across the room.

Killua can't think of what else to say. He has no other way to describe it, but he recognizes it as surely and deeply as he did his older brother's nen before he could put a name to that sensation. The smoke that rose from the fire of Gon's wrath. "I don't know what it is."

One of Benjamin's guards implores his Prince's attention. Killua waves Melody over - this is the man from whom he learned of combination nen, who could so easily identify other nen users and their powers. For all his attempts to be circumspect, Melody can hear the guard loudly and clearly:

"Your highness, you are in the throes of a powerful nen vow. Whether it has been broken and this is the backlash, or this is one its conditions, I cannot say, but--"

"Did you hear me, big brother?" Camilla's hands are on her hips. Her guards flank her, every inch as alight for this contest as she is. "I called you a coward."

Benjamin's closest advisors know that, when his temper cools, he is an eminently reasonable man. Until it does he is not. Their mistake is not realizing that his siblings know this, too.

"Little brother Halky just called you out. You're a toy soldier who plays dressup games with our generals. If you really believed what you said, you wouldn't need to hide behind Balsamico. You'd fight us yourself."

Benjamin utters a low, warning growl. "Is that an offer to fight me, sister?"

Camilla steps forward.

Halkenburg reaches for them. "Wait, no, stop this at--"

Killua's fingers spark; Bisky grabs his shoulder, tightly.

Benjamin lunges with a speed that belies his size, seizes his sister, and breaks her neck.

Halkenburg is aghast; Luzurus dismayed; Tupebba disgusted; Zhang Lei watchful; Taithon unmoved.

Camilla's entourage remain standing where they are with eager smiles.

"This is murder, brother." Halkenburg's own guards move forward; they await his command to bring Benjamin to justice. "This is against the rules our father-"

"THERE ARE NO MORE RULES." Benjamin's voice booms: it is no longer human in a way that even the non-nen users in the room cannot miss. The black tendrils that once encircled him begin to bleed into his veins. "I AM KING AND YOU WILL BOW TO ME OR DIE."

Tubeppa and Halkenburg stumble backward.

Camilla laughs.

The room turns to her; she lifts herself weightlessly from the floor and her vertebrae slide back into place with the clicks of clockwork.

"Oh, big brother, karma has already decided."

The outcaste sleeper agents Camilla has placed amongst her siblings explode.

Killua tugs Melody behind Bisky faster than the blast can reach them; Bisky's _ken_ is strong enough to shield all three. Tubeppa, Luzurus, and Zhang Lei are killed instantly. Halkenburg's men hurl themselves in front of him. Taithon's would-be assassin does not move with the others; he nuzzles the nen beast on his shoulder.

Benjamin is hit with the full force of his and lands in charred, oozing halves several feet away from where he stood.

Camilla raises her chin, delighted. "CAMMY IS KING NOW. IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, KILL YOURSELVES."

Halkenburg coughs; he crawls out from under a pile of burnt bodies, weeping.

"WELL? LITTLE BROTHER? LITTLE SISTER? LITTLE COMMON PEOPLE?"

Camilla turns to await their answer.

Benjamin rises behind her.

His nen beast has climbed into his body. His remaining arm is worn like a sleeve; his head is slid over its faceless brain as a mask. All of the blast's survivors have now been awakened to nen; Killua can see it in the white roundness of their horrified expressions.

It flexes - he flexes - grasps his sister, and hurls her through the ceiling.

The force is sufficient to break glass. Wood. Steel. The aura unleashed is oppressive, antlike, overpowering. The hole where Camilla once was is open to the dome-covered sky.

The thing that was Benjamin leaps into it, after her.

"Help, the wounded," Halkenburg hacks up smoke.

No one moves. The room stinks of charred flesh, fear, and urine.

"LONG LIVE PRINCE BENJAMIN," someone screams, and the chaos that ensues in the ballroom is heralded by gunfire.

The thing that was Benjamin searches for his sister. He does not find her on the roof. Nor on the deck.

He finds her when the enormous anemone that was her breaks the surface of the fetid water. It is fully the size of the ship-within-a-ship itself; its lobes are filled with the bodies of the victims of the Succession, and it oozes poison.

It wraps these around the bridge tower, upon which the thing that was Benjamin stands, and tears it down.

The water the anemone displaces floods through the sluice gate and into the ship’s pipes. This is sent to ballast to steady the ship against the storm. The ballast tanks are already nearly full; without the management system based on the bridge, these systems cannot be changed remotely. The tanks burst first, followed by pipes, followed by fires in overheated engines.

All of these tanks are located below the waterline on Tier 5.

The few crew present that far down do their best to seal doors, to mitigate damage. When the water rises to their ankles, they can no longer control panic in their passengers. When it rises to knees, then waists, they sound the alarm.

Scores of children and the elderly and those who cannot swim drown while the Cha-R fight the Xi-Yu back from the stairwell.

Crew members plead with a non-existent command to seal Tier 5. After the last of the passengers who will make it out does so and the water rises to the top of the stairs, they seal it on site by breaking open access panels with wrenches and welding the bulkhead with torches.

The water is stopped; the crew know that Tier 4 is now below the waterline, though most of the passengers do not.

Until the Black Whale hits a shoal.

They are near land and in uncharted waters; bereft of sonar, and a pilot, it moves toward the bearing it was last headed, wherever that may be.

The force of the impact cracks the glass of the observation deck, knocks anyone standing off their feet, and tears a gleaming scar in the side of the ship. When this gushes seawater, and swiftly, the cry at last goes up to abandon ship.

ATTENTION ATTENTION. THIS IS AN EMERGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT. PLEASE PROCEED TO THE NEAREST LIFEBOAT LAUNCH POINT ON YOUR DESIGNATED TIER AND AWAIT CREW INSTRUCTIONS.

The Black Whale is designed to evacuate by Tier.

There are precisely enough lifeboats aboard for the number of passengers. They are designed to dispense only when the Tier above has completed offloading; to prevent tampering with this system, they are all held on Tiers 1 and 2. The system is inaccessible from below.

By the time the alarm is sounded, the things that were Benjamin and Camilla have long since crushed the Tier 1 launch point beyond usability.

Killua traces the circuit to them at a run; his fingertips brush scorch marks into the elegantly paneled walls. The locks are mechanical. The system is pneumatic. There is nothing he can do.

Tier 2 has the only functional lifeboats.

So that is where Kurapika orders them to go. He collects nothing save Oito, Woble, the eyes, and Pairo's head. Even that delay forces Killua and Bill into a battle with a handful of zealous Benjamin followers.

They are battle-hardened soldiers in their own right; they are not Zoldyck assassins, and Bill provides a sufficient distraction for Killua to slice open their throats.

They run into Prince Marayam, Fugetsu, and Kacho's retinues on the way toward the stairs down. All three younger Princes are crying; Bisky's fists are bloody. As are Hanzo's kunai.

The momentary indecision of where to go, the pause for Killua to explain why they can't leave from here, and how he knows, is sufficient to see them cut off by guards of the dead and nen-cursed Princes. The same black nen has begun to envelop some of them too, and they clamour with the voices of other creatures.

A lobe the size of the ship's funnel crashes through the hull less than twenty yards away, searching.

The Princes fall back behind the Hunters; Bisky hisses to Killua that they will have to find a way to break through. There's no time for this. It's going to be ugly.

"THE KING IS DEAD. LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE."

Halkenburg's voice has become indistinguishable from that of the winged creature on his shoulder. His eyes are round and wide; glossy and keen. His guards march with him in step.

As do Taithon and hers.

"LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE."

Taithon and Halkenburg's forces are organized. The others are not. Taithon and Halkenburg have nen beasts. The others do not. It becomes readily apparent that their adversaries must face them, run, or die here.

Melody finds the opening first. "They're doing this for _us_. _Go_."

"Big brother," Marayam sobs.

"Big sister," Fugetsu implores Taithon, "Come with us!"

"Oh, _shit_." Killua slaps his forehead.

Kurapika and the rest are already moving, rushing down the stairs. Killua scans the skirmish for a break in the crowd. Bolts through it. Digs his heels in beside Taithon; at Godspeed, the carpet melts beneath his sneakers.

Killua plucks the needle from Taithon's temple.

"C'mon, I'll get you out."

Politely, she declines. She will fight beside her subjects, and her brother.

Taithon's nen ability was born from her sincere belief in love above all. There is no greater expression of love than this.

Killua rushes back to the rest. The corridors are partially collapsed; the children need to be lifted around obstacles and down missing swaths of stairs. This is much easier to do with an infant, so Kurapika and Oito are further ahead than the rest.

"Those idiots aren't going to last three seconds against the nen beasts outside," Bisky sighs when Killua reports what happened. Her expression is one Killua doesn't recognize. "And then they're going to break through the bulkhead everybody's going to fucking drown."

She starts to roll up her sleeves.

"Get Oito to safety. Find Gon. Get on one of those lifeboats. Swim, if you have to. You've paid your dues."

"What are you doing?" Killua doesn't understand.

Bisky does. Bisky has lived long enough to know herself. And she knew when they parted ways on Greed Island that if she spent more time around Gon and Killua she would become too attached. She toed the line in the Mitene Union; they were her pupils, she told herself, and they needed her training to survive.

It has long since gone too far. Killua and Gon are the sons she will never have, and if they die she will be devastated in a way from which she will never recover, the same as any parent.

"Taking my own advice." She clasps his neck. "You're not the only one who needs to stop running."

Bisky returns the way she came. She wonders if this was how the old man felt, and if she should be grateful.

Hanzo pushes Killua forward gently. Kurapika and Oito have gotten far ahead. "You're the fastest - take point. I'll bring up the rear."

Killua swallows, nods, and leaves Hanzo to help Melody and the sisters climb the last flight.

Killua leaps. Hits the ground at a run. Makes it through the exit door to Tier 2 five seconds ahead of Kurapika. He is the first to hear the shouts from their side of the Tier 2-3 bulkhead. And the screams from the other.

The water has risen in Tier 4. It is high enough that its occupants must cling to structures or drown. They have swarmed the guards at the Tier 3 stairwell; those soldiers that did not flee are dead. The entire population of the lower three Tiers is gathered on Deck 3, around the sole access point to the upper decks.

The water is still rising.

"ATTENTION ATTENTION--"

In response, those closest to it press into those above. To go further, higher - to close every gap until there are no more.

"Let us through!"

Those who can go no further have five feet of reinforced concrete on one side, the force of a hundred thousand passengers on the other.

"You FUCKING BASTARDS. Let us THROUGH!"

They are being crushed.

"THIS IS AN EMERGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT--"

The soldiers who surround the bulkhead on Tier 2 are frantic. Trigger discipline has been utterly abandoned. Those who have nen are using it to reinforce the seal. They are shouting almost as loudly as those on the other side. Two are in tears.

"You open that door, _everybody up here dies_. They'll rip the lifeboats apart. They'll rip _us_ apart."

"Then _stand down_. Get out of _way_. Or I swear I will _shoot_ you _right_ here."

"PLEASE PROCEED TO THE NEAREST LIFEBOAT LAUNCH POINT--"

The bulkhead mechanism is mechanical. Killua only knows Tier 1 by heart; without his plans, he does not know where it is located.

Kurapika keeps running toward the lifeboats. He guides Oito, who holds Woble, with one arm. All he carries in the other are his kin.

"Show--"

"HELP US! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, HELP US!"

Killua follows. Killua will release the lock at the launch point. Send the boats down to Tier 3. Go back for Gon.

The shriek of a passenger who clawed his way to the side of the stairs to avoid being suffocated, and instead toppled to his death, echoes behind them.

"Me--"

"You have _orders_ \--"

"We have orders to _protect the passengers_ \--"

But what if Killua can't? What if the water has already risen too high?

"--AND AWAIT CREW INSTRUCTIONS."

"--ROCK."

Cracks in the concrete leak an orange glow in the instant before they explode upward. The bulkhead shatters. Its shrapnel is delivered at a velocity that rips through anyone and anything within its radius not shielded by nen or iron.

Gon is carried upward by the momentum of his own attack.

In its wake he is, briefly, incapacitated as his reserves of aura recover, and it was this fact Killua exploited to win their last match. 

Even Killua does not have time to reach him. 

Before the wave of panicked, gasping passengers who must now move or die surges behind Gon; it breaks over him and he is pulled under.

Killua turns back.

Kurapika does not.

Were he not an Enhancer capable of moving thousands of pounds with any of his limbs, Gon would have died there. As it is when he at last struggles upright to break the surface to draw breath again, he is much the worse for wear. His cheekbone is broken on the left side where it has been stamped on; his left eye bulges from its socket unnaturally and does not see. Most of his ribs are broken and his breath is drawn in sucking gasps. His abdomen - visible under his torn shirt - is a mottled map of blueing internal injuries. He is missing a boot and the foot that had worn it is crushed.

Without Godspeed Killua would have joined him: even with it Killua must use the walls and when he is forced down to pick through gaps in the torrent that last less than the difference between sight and sound he is clipped and nearly dragged under. 

He makes it to the rock that is Gon's activated _ken_ midstream; by the time he has forded his way to the relative safety of the leeward side of a pillar, with Gon in his arms, he shaking so hard his teeth rattle and is just as bruised as the boy he carries.

Gon's head blares as loud as the emergency klaxons - it hurts so much that it is impossible to think for long heartbeats and agonized breaths. His defense was pure instinct; the faint tingle of Killua's touch in Godspeed prevented Gon from lashing out when he was pulled free. 

To his right eye, the ship resolves from blurry still images to chaos.

There is gunfire and there are screams and there is nen and there are a stampede of footsteps and above it all: PLEASE PROCEED TO THE NEAREST LIFEBOAT LAUNCH POINT.

Bullets spray the crowd. Two arms lengths' in front of Gon a man holding an infant and leading an older child by the arm is riddled with them; he falls, is lost to view under the feet of a hundred others, and neither he nor the children rise again.

Gon feels Killua's arms wrap more tightly around him. Gon smells Killua's blood.

Reinforcements have arrived. Fourteen hundred of the two thousand soldiers aboard the Black Whale are stationed on the first two Tiers: they have orders to prevent anyone below from going up, instructions to prevent anyone from evacuating out of order. They do not know that the lower Tiers have flooded, nor that the lifeboats below will not launch.  
They try to control the crowd with commands, which no one hears, and warning shots, which no one can obey. Most passengers do not know the layouts of the other Tiers; having struggled through the choke point of the bulkhead, many are desperate to spread out to avoid being trampled. Others want to stop, to find friends and family. They spill out in every direction until the soldiers must shoot or be overrun; for those that choose either, there are far more threats in the crowd than they anticipated.

A handful of soldiers are nen users. These are targeted by the more ambitious of the Hei-Ly, who can now meet their quota of slaughter with absolute impunity. Both are fought by the Cha-R and Xi-Yu, who defend the Tier 4 and 5 passengers under their protection, who in turn fight one another.

Gon thinks he sees Ittoku struck through the heart with a rope of bright red nen.

There is too much, too fast. It overwhelms Gon's senses. He can't see a way out. He looks to Killua.

Killua is exhausted. Killua is afraid. Gon knows how both look on his friend so well by now that Killua couldn't hide them, even if he meant to. 

Unlike Gon, Killua can make sense of everything. He can see a way out. Through fleeting slivers; the same he squeezed through to make it this far and nearly died for it. To exits at either shore. But would Gon make it like this? Should he risk it? Shouldn't he do something to stop this? Shouldn't he help these people? Gon's condition upsets him; he is distraught and breathing hard against Gon's neck and there are bullet holes in his shoulder from metal-jacketed military rounds that went right through him. He was too focused on speed and Gon's survival to raise his _ken_ in time.

Gon extends his own to cover them both. There is nothing more he can do. 

He can't fight for his friends. He can't protect any of the passengers. 

Everything is moving too quickly and it hurts so much.

He might save Killua.

They might be safe here.

They might not be. They might be two more dead children who should have run away.

_NO._

Gon isn't helpless. 

Gon has an idea. 

They can stop this - they can _win_ it.

" _Be my sight_ ," he says to Killua, though how Killua hears him over the maddening din he will never know, " _I'll be your strength._ "

Their auras merge; Killua covers Gon's eyes with his hands.

In that cool darkness Gon finds focus. He no longer resists being submerged. He dives, as deep as he can. Until there is no light, no sense of direction. 

When he can go no further, he breathes in water.

And after he has drowned, he emerges on the other side.

Gon opens Killua's eyes.

His first thought is that he wants to show Killua how to do this, badly. The world is so dim and dull - all of the colours are faded like fabric left in the sun, and subtle hues blend together into grey nothing. Scents have vanished. Sounds are dampened; movements are sluggish, and languid.

Gon feels sad for him, until he sees what Killua sees that he doesn't.

The connections between things. Cause and effect. All of the pieces and how they are woven together: where something will go when it is aimed, depending on how fast it is fired or how hard it is thrown, how much it weighs, how it is shaped, whether it strikes something else on the way, how much momentum it will lose, where it will be redirected, and where that other thing will go, too. Which of any ten people will make it through the crowd, given how quickly they run, what routes they chose, and how often they change direction. Who will survive a blow that is struck, who won't, and how long it will take them to die.

The full pattern of action and consequence, in painstaking detail, all of it, well past the level it would blurred into senselessness in Gon’s mind. Where Gon sees the vibrant colours of cloth, how it feels and how it smells, Killua sees how it was made.

No, Killua's world is beautiful in its own way. Graceful. Like the deep ocean, where there is less light and everything moves slowly. 

It is exactly what Gon needs. To hit as many targets as he will need to, as fast as he will need to, to make a difference. To pick them out within the churning mill of the crowd: the soldiers on the offensive, the blood-soaked Hei-Ly lurking within it, the Xi-Yu who are heedless of their surroundings with their weapons, the guards of the wealthy and the Princes smashing their way to the front. To anticipate where they will be not when Gon attacks, but when his attack lands. To push them back, to knock them out of the fight until the passengers are clear.

To an onlooker, Gon's hands do not appear to move. He shapes, forms, and throws more rapidly than the frames of human vision. Killua’s soft blue eyes are set in an alien expression of intensity.

Gon uses Paper at Godspeed.

A shower of round orange stars cuts through the crowd. Against the muted dark in which Killua perceives the ship they blaze like fire.

Killua is incredible; Killua knows how to land shots that Gon would have thought impossible by launching his attacks _through_ objects, by redirecting them with the terrain. He perceives shifting weaknesses in their _ken_ in real-time; he anticipates how their _ken_ will change based on their opponents' actions, and at what speed; he does this over and over and over again without overloading his mind.

Gon's reserves of aura have been multiplied by adrenaline and determination; he draws on what remains of Killua's, too, and Killua can draw from his surroundings. From the air. From cables that run through the pillar. From the metal floor through Gon's bare foot. Gon digs as deeply as he can - Killua's teeth are gritted in Gon’s growl - to turn fifty into one hundred. Twice that. More.

Someone attacks Killua from the side and behind; Killua has already seen their shadow and Gon switches to Scissors to knock them and anyone with them flying. 

Killua feels pain as keenly as Gon does. Gon did not expect him to, nor for him to feel his own ability. Killua, though, accepts it. Can think through it. Can push himself past the point that his body breaks. Gon knows now that Killua could join with him so easily because Killua has already drowned so many times.

Gon burns their strength down to the last cinder. He attacks until his hands and Killua's veins feel raw; until they can no longer defend themselves; until they can no longer stand.

He comes back to himself when his knees hit the ground. The ringing in his head is a dull ache. Killua is slumped against his back, panting, and it is strangely quiet.

Gon's shins are sticky and damp.

"ATTENTION ATTENTION--"

The crowd has become a trickle that picks its way carefully through the body-strewn hall. The pressure from below now eased, passengers wait on the stairs behind the shattered bulkhead with dread on their faces.

"THIS IS AN EMERGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT--"

In front of Gon there are scores of pieces of bodies that have been cut in half.

Killua has started to tremble.

No no no.

It is too quiet and no one is moving. Why won't they move.

_It's a lot harder to control your strength when you're moving that quickly._

"PLEASE PROCEED--"

There are so many corpses with circular holes missing.

There are so many people, moaning in agony, who clutch limbs that end the same burnt, rounded nothing.

Why didn't they defend themselves?

Some of them did, and they moved or deflected and that _was_ impossible to account for and these attacks landed elsewhere, not where Gon intended. Many of these ended up as craters in the walls. Many ended up in things that are not soldiers or mafia and some of these are wearing suits, weak Hunters--

"LIFEBOAT LAUNCH POINT--"

Gon scans the room for anyone he knows, wild-eyed. He spots Melody, sitting up, dazed and battered, but she is fine, oh thank god, she is fine, and next to her, next to her are kunai and a shaved scalp--

It is very quiet, and no one else hears it, but Gon will never forget the sound Killua makes when he sees what Gon sees next until the day he dies.

No no _no_ , he didn't, he _didn't_ , Gon didn't, someone. Please.

The crowd on the stairs parts for the first of the medics to make it through. They begin to triage, speaking to each other and using terms Gon doesn't understand. One asks if the threat is clear. It seems to be.

Leorio spots Gon and Killua. He does show some relief, tightened by the duty he has now and the fact that he can guess at what happened.

What does _he_ know? He wasn't there. 

Gon forces himself to meet Leorio's eyes. Why does he look like he's grieving? Leorio looks like he wants to help, so help. Help. _Help_. 

"Help--"

_Me._

"--them."

"Gon." Leorio's voice is gentle. It's too gentle. Doesn't he know what happened? Stop, stop it. Make it better.

"What are you doing? Help him," Gon commands; his voice cracks twice and he swallows snot. "That's your job, so _do it_."

Leorio raises his hands. He looks very sad. Gon can't look at him anymore. "Alright, Gon. Just stay there, okay? I'll come back for you soon."

Gon doesn't want to stay. They can't make him stay. He doesn't want to be here. He feels sick and he has to protect Killua. Killua is hurting, badly, and as ever nobody notices but Gon.

Gon leads Killua away by the hand. He drags his foot. It's horrible to walk; the sensation that gnaws in his chest is much worse.

They have to get away from here. They have to get as far away as they can. Gon walks and walks and grips Killua's wrist tightly, and when Killua says, "Gon, stop," he grips it tighter.

The passageways of Tier 2 run and blur. Gon doesn't know his way through them either. Gon doesn't see Mizai until the man is right in front of him. He is holding up a card.

“Stop," Mizai says.

Gon doesn't. Mizai flips the card around and Gon can no longer move. Killua surrenders without protest.

The emergency alarm has ceased.

The crew of the Black Whale has been fighting their own battle. To raise the sluice gates in spite of the monsters ravaging the first Tier; to redirect the water. To knock down the fires in the engine room. To fix the engines - to put backup generators online manually, so that the pumps will drain Tier 4. They have struggled through chest-deep water and carried lines and bottles and torches above their heads to patch over the gash in her side and to fill what they cannot weld. They have improvised controls over the rudder to keep her from drifting back into the shoals; they have rerouted enough power from the systems in Tier 5 to keep her from lying dead in the water.

In so doing, a few were crushed by the warring Princes; several have been burned alive by arc flash; a dozen have drowned. Through their heroic efforts, the Black Whale stays afloat and can limp to the nearest shore.

They pick up what lifeboats they can along the way.

Gon's cell in the brig is next to Killua's. They cannot see one another. Their backs rest against the same wall.

Killua says very little. Gon says less.

"I know you can break out of here," Mizai tells them, "Don't." Gon has been threatened many times, but never as calmly, succinctly, or absolutely as Mizai does now.

Gon doesn't know how long he spends there. Time lurches and stagnates. He does not eat and when he sleeps he does not realize it until he starts awake.

Bisky comes to see them. When she sees Gon's face she passes him by. They let her in to speak to Killua - or perhaps she lets herself in. Killua and Bisky speak in hushed voices for a time before Killua begins to cry.

Not soundlessly, like he usually does, when he thinks Gon can't see him. When he thinks Gon can't see the red in his eyes and smell the salt. This time Killua cries like families on the docks of Whale Island would cry when they gathered to hear that a fishing vessel bearing their sons had been lost at sea.

Gon lets the sound wash over him. He tastes the condemnation in each wail, savours it, and buries it deep inside where it will stay forever. Gon did this. Killua is going to leave him, and it is his fault.

There is something ugly on the other side of the precipice, when Killua leaves. Something Gon does not want to look at. Something Gon deserves.

Bisky stops by his cell again, after Killua has gone quiet. She crouches down to his level. "If you want to talk to me, you can," she says.

Gon shakes his head.

"Alright. The offer's open." She stands. "Gon, use _zetsu_. Nobody but the Zodiacs and I can get within 50 yards of this place. Killua needs to eat."

The guard who brings them food looks at them like they are a pair of rabid tigers. Neither can keep down more than a bite or two. The water is good.

Mizai returns some indeterminable time later. Killua won't look at him; Gon does not blink. "I'm going to take you to the courtroom. This isn't a trial. All we're going to do is ask the two of you some questions. If you want representation, I'll see what I can do."

"I know what a preliminary hearing is." Killua's voice is hoarse and unimpressed. "This is where you'll decide how to charge us, based on what we say. On a ship, soldiers, law enforcement, and Hunters will be prosecuted, represented, and judged by their own chain of command. Which means you."

Gon's eyes narrow at Mizai.

_Liar._

Somewhere outside the cell block, a tray is dropped and footsteps flee, followed by the sound of doors slamming.

There is no clothing in the brig in children's sizes. Gon and Killua wear their own. Neither has changed and no one has seen to their injuries. Leorio and Cheadle do what they can in the few minutes Mizai will allow - Gon won't let either of them near him, and Mizai must use his cards. Gon still has one boot.

Mizai and Kanzai escort them from their cells.

The courtroom is full of people in suits that Gon doesn't recognize. He could ask Killua who they are. He doesn't. Killua offers to speak first; Gon hasn't spoken since they were arrested.

Bobotai gets as far as asking Killua to state his name before the murmurs begin.

"'Zoldyck'? _Those_ Zoldycks?" Someone asks incredulously.

"Who could have foreseen the old Chairman's 'might makes right' strategy would have consequences?" Someone else asks sardonically.

"I know it's a lot to ask, but could the Association not _try_ to limit the number of hitmen and serial killers it licences every year? Put a quota on them, perhaps?"

Bobotai sternly calls for order.

"Yes, 'those' Zoldycks," Killua admits, and Gon can tell that everything he says after that is poisoned.

It sounds like there was a lot of fighting on Tier 1 before Killua reached him. It sounds like the Princes caused this. It sounds like they're dead. It's hard to pay attention to the words; it's harder to read the words in front of him. There is a piece of paper with numbers on it and Gon can't focus on it no matter how hard he tries.

All he can hear are Mizai's accusation-laden questions, the scorn of strangers, and Killua's pain.

Melody is present. When Killua spots her, he lowers his gaze to the table in front of him and does not look up again.

The way Mizai phrases his sharp inquiries leaves no room for Killua to talk around them, even if he could. Even if he wanted to. Mizai asks Killua what he intended to accomplish. He asks Killua what other options Killua had to do so, and why he did not choose these instead. 

As if he were there. As if he would have known what to do if he were.

By the time it is his turn to speak, Gon sees red.

He brushes past Mizai on his way to the stand. He sits without taking his eyes off him. There is a trail of blood on the floor from Gon's bare foot.

"Where were you?" Gon asks.

"That isn't how this works," Mizai informs him, "I ask--"

"Where _were you_." Gon asks again with a low growl.

"The events occurred very quickly. The defense team had to ensure the safety of VIPs--"

" _We_ were there. Where were _you_?" 

"Fulfilling my duties as an Association Hunter. To protect the passengers. As ordered."

"Well, you _failed_. Didn't you."

Bobotai tries to silence him; Gon doesn't really hear him. He does see Mizai reach for a card, so he obeys. And when Mizai has put the card back and approached him, Gon grabs him by the wrist and tells him exactly what he thinks.

How dare he act like he would have known better - what does he know? How dare he speak like that to Killua - Killua is a better man than he will ever be.

There is an uproar. Someone warns Gon; someone says something to him very harshly. Someone uses a nen ability on Gon that he doesn't understand and can't defend against. Gon tries to break out of it. He shouts and stamps and slams his fists. 

Killua lays a hand on top of his head.


	8. Intimacy x and x Codependence - Part 7: Resurfacing | The New Continent (1 October 2001 - 1 January 2002)

Gon wakes up in his cell. Sometimes, Killua shifts so that Gon knows he's there; he, too, doesn't say anything anymore.

The deliberations regarding criminal charges last less than an hour. The legal right of Professional Hunters to kill is well established. To maliciously target the innocent without cause - to murder - no; to use lethal force in defense of themselves and others, and in pursuit of their aims, always. Gon and Killua were in real and present danger. They believed their actions were in the best interest of their clients. There is no question of homicide, negligent or otherwise; to be held accountable for all unintended harm to bystanders would put an undue burden on blacklist and bounty Hunters, several of whom are present, including Saiyu. They offer their expert opinion that it would make hunting those who use crowd control as a weapon or conceal themselves within civilian institutions all but impossible. While this is certainly an 8 or a 9 on a scale of unfortunate collateral, it is hardly an 11.

That one of the victims was Kakin royalty adds some ambiguity. Kakin officials present are asked if they would like to exercise diplomatic privilege in order to raise their own charges. They decline. Crown Princes Kacho and Fugetsu are offering full amnesty for the Succession, as they place fault on the King and their fellow Princes alone.

They are thanked for this gracious gesture by an official motion. Their respect for the Association's autonomy is duly acknowledged and appreciated. Chairwoman Yorkshire offers sincere well wishes for the health of their Highnesses, the prosperity of Kakin, and its continued, mutually beneficial relationship with Hunters.

Article 4 of the Hunter Bylaws is the thornier issue. Unless they have committed heinous crimes, a Hunter shall not target other Hunters. While it is clear from Killua's description of events and Gon's "statement," as it were, that neither had targeted Hunters with lethal intent, Mizai reminds them that lethal intent is in no way required by the Bylaw's wording. Targeting them with the intent to harm is sufficient, and from Killua's description, it does sound as if they had considered that possibility, even if the purpose of their attacks was to incapacitate those Hunters who posed a risk to passengers. 

However, as Bobotai points out, Article 4 is not to be interpreted as an absolute. Clearly, when Hunters agree to engage in mortal combat against one another, such as on Greed Island or bouts in Heaven's Arena, the Article does not apply. Therefore, there is room for interpretation. Causing harm to the passengers under the protection of fellow Hunters, even if in defense of passengers under their protection or their own lives, could be seen as tacit agreement to engage in combat. 

Mizai cannot dispute this, so Bobotai continues: given that the facts of the case are ambiguous and rely on personal intent, the characters of the accused are relevant. These matters will include information privy to Association members only - all but a few delegates of the V6 are asked to leave. 

First, Gon and Killua's acquaintances are asked to speak on their behalf.

"They're kids," says Leorio Paladiknight, "They probably panicked."

Bobotai points out that at 14, they are hardly children, and admits to skepticism that a Zoldyck-trained assassin would be unduly distraught by the prospect of harm from civilians. Given the duties Gon has performed for the Association, and that he is a seasoned Heaven's Arena fighter, Bobotai has doubts that Gon would either.

Melody admits that she hasn't known either of them to panic. Even on the tail of S-Class blacklist targets such as the Phantom Troupe, Killua remained completely calm. When captured, tortured, and threatened, they formulated an effective plan of escape.

Mizai suggests that this was not a rash act precipitated by the situation. As evidence, he offers Killua's record at the Hunter exam: particularly, at the one he failed. A personal disagreement with another assassin led him to murder a fellow applicant in cold blood in order to fail the exam, rather than simply forfeiting and walking away from the site. Killua also killed two applicants aboard the airship for a perceived slight in a display of utterly disproportionate force.

Bobotai disagrees; Mizai is presenting the evidence misleadingly. Killua was threatened by these men. He had the right to protect himself as he saw fit. Hunters and Hunter applicants during the exam are under no obligation to retreat. Killua spared the lives of his quarry during the island phase; the only applicants or examiners he killed were those who threatened his life or safety, save Bodoro.

"Only the one murder, then," Mizai submits.

"Permitted by the Chairman under the circumstances of the exam, as were several others."

In contrast, Gon's behaviour during the exam was exemplary. He not only aided fellow participants, he put his own life at risk to assist them when they were in danger as a result of their own actions, as seen with Ponzu and Leorio. He repeatedly found and implemented non-violent solutions at the Trick Tower. He demonstrated bravery and forbearance in the final phase. Gon's nen master, Wing, spoke highly of him as well and has stated that his potential could be of great service to the Association.

Mizai reminds them that the law is the law, regardless of how useful someone might be. "Aboard the Black Whale, Gon Freecss has repeatedly associated with Cha--"

"Oh, who cares," Saiyu interrupts, "We've got plenty of Hunters working for the mob back home. If I'm not mistaken, one of the _Zodiacs_ is the head of the Nostrade family. That's how things get done."

This is true, Bobotai confirms, and moreover potential _does_ matter - specific qualities are regularly required by the Association, without which it cannot fulfill its role. Some of these roles are integral to the safekeeping of millions of lives, not hundreds. 

What they have to discuss next requires a highly restricted clearance. All but a handful of delegates - Hunters and V6 officials alike - are asked to leave the room. Nen is used to ensure that nothing can be overheard. 

Knov confirms that Gon and Killua did, in fact, eliminate one of the Royal Guards by themselves. That they were the only ones who did, aside from the Chairman - Morel, Knuckle, and Shoot failed to take out their targets, who died as a result of Rose poisoning, instead. 

There is a brief hush: the Hunters now present are aware of the scale of nen ability held by these Chimera Ants, from both intelligence gathered and inferred from the fact that Isaac Netero himself was forced to use a Rose. 

"I think we can say," Bobotai suggests, "Without question, that no matter how much potential Wing may have seen in Gon, Killua Zoldyck's particular set of skills would have been instrumental in closing the gap between the power of a Royal Guard and the power of a pair of newly trained 13-year-olds. That Ant was not exposed to the Rose. And it was confirmed to have healing abilities. Had Gon and Killua also failed, so might have the mission in its entirety."

The Hunter Association requires these unique skills, as it does not have a way to home-grow them. As evidenced by the former Chairman subcontracting part of the mission to the Zoldycks in the first place. Furthermore, unlike his brother, Killua appears to have an interest in supporting the Association's goals beyond mere possession of a licence. He could be an invaluable asset.

"Not invaluable," Mizai corrects before Bobotai orders him to be silent, "We're putting a price on him right now. We're at fourteen Hunter and ninety-seven civilian lives, and counting."

Bobotai reminds him that there is a video record of the events in question. That while Killua is the one directing, Gon is clearly the one attacking. That they clearly tried to avoid helpless passengers as much as possible; that to do so entirely was impossible, and he is defeating his own argument by referring to hostile foreign soldiers and members of the mafia as "civilians" to include them in that tally. Gon has shown himself to be clear-headed and upstanding in the past; given this, there is little doubt that if he agreed to Killua's plan here he did so because he thought it was a necessary moral good.

"Besides, he's not wrong, is he?" adds Saiyu before Bobotai silences him, too, "If you'd kept the peace this never would've happened. That was your job, wasn't it?"

"How do we know that it was Killua's plan?" Mizai interjects, ignoring that. "You said it yourself: he's spotting. Not pulling the trigger."

Even Cheadle is out of patience with how deeply Mizai is poisoning this well. "Oh for the love of-- he's covering Gon's _eyes_."

“Circumstantial evidence.”

Knov is asked for comment on this. "Killua always did the planning, between the two of them." This stands to reason - Gon is sheltered, Killua has had formal training in strategy, upon which the entire Extermination Team relied. Knov recounts that Gon deferred to Killua, as well, and recounts that a simple word and a touch was all it took for Gon to back down from striking Morel.

"Well, that settles--" Bobotai declares, before a murmur from Knov blankets the room in a hushed pall.

It carries only because there are so few people present. Knov does not look up when he speaks "She was in pieces. I went up to see if there were any other survivors, after the battle. They cut her to pieces. They gutted her like an animal while she was still alive."

Bobotai has the last statement stricken from the record. It is not relevant to the case at hand.

Ultimately, there is no way around the fact that Gon and Killua violated Article 4. However, there is insufficient evidence that they did so maliciously rather than negligently. They should be disciplined, but not to the fullest extent of the Bylaws - their sentence must be moderated by circumstances.

Gon Freecss and Killua Zoldyck have their Hunter licenses suspended for one year. They are fined in the amount required to repatriate the bodies of those Hunters who died as a result of their actions. They are served with an administrative reprimand that will remain on their permanent record for the rest of their careers.

Killua goes free that afternoon. Gon, who is being held in contempt of court, stays a few more days.

In doing so, he breaks his promise to see the New Continent with Killua.

The nen that was bound into the Succession ceremony had two simple restrictions. One, that only one Prince could survive the voyage. Two, that no Prince of Kakin could leave the Black Whale until the first condition was met, under pain of death. 

Unbeknownst to all aboard, these conditions have been fulfilled. There were no survivors in the contest between the adult siblings. Marayam was killed, along with all members of his retinue present, by Gon and Killua. The backlash from violating condition two killed Woble within seconds of her lifeboat touching the sea. Kacho died weeks ago; the simulacrum who exists beside her unwitting sister is her post-mortem nen beast.

Prince Fugetsu is the true King of Kakin. The thing that was Kacho forfeits her own claim without protest. The old King died before he could complete the ceremony, and she did not face her siblings in battle to consume their powers personally. Thus she inherits none of the karma that is her birthright.

She is happy with what she has: an ability that will allow her to see her sister, the Crown Prince Kacho of New Kakin, whenever she wishes. 

It is her ability that allows for the transport of materials necessary to make repairs to the Black Whale, after all. To return home to report everything that has happened. To be coronated.

Fugetsu never wanted to rule. 

She knows that she survived only because of Halkenburg and Taithon. She can't make sense of her sister's writings, they vacillate between childlike and sinister. Halkenburg's will was, however, clear. Her first proclamation is that under King Fugetsu, Kakin will become a constitutional monarchy within a generation.

Gon doesn't know where Killua went. 

Many of the passengers have already departed; they have already picked up whatever pieces of their lives they could salvage from the flooded wreckage of the lower levels or the smashed and trampled remains of the upper. Interim shelter along the shoreline is in tents, caves, and shipping containers.

Only the Hunters, the crew, and the gravely injured remain aboard.

Gon limps the empty halls alone. The worst of the aftermath has been removed, but dark stains and tattered clothing still litter the floor wherever Gon goes. 

Ten feet from the Tier 2 bulkhead, Gon finds his boot. He picks it up and sits down on the stairs for a while.

Leorio's bed hasn't been slept in in days; the berth they share shows signs that he's been back for at most a few minutes at a time to shave, shower, and fetch fresh scrubs. This is good. Gon doesn't know what he'd say to Leorio if he saw him again.

Gon strips off his torn, filthy clothing, washes his face, and curls up in the furthest corner of the top bunk with a blanket over his head.

He wakes to find that he can see through his left eye again. That his face and foot have been healed.

He is hungry, and the food court is closed. He has no jenny and Killua can't get him anything out of the vending machine. He punches through the plastic with a _ko_ -wrapped fist; nen still makes his flesh feel raw, like a badly overused muscle or the inside of his mouth after too much hard candy.

Gon makes one last pilgrimage to the uppermost Tier. For the first time, he takes the stairs. They are crumbled and missing in places and he has to climb. The carpets are moudly with stinking water; the fine wooden facade is splintered and burned to reveal the same steel and concrete shell as the rest of the ship.

There are still bodies up here. The princes are accounted for and the wounded were rescued, but there are dead servants and bodyguards in places the medical staff could not yet reach. Gon can smell them all. 

He climbs up a hole in the ceiling. From the deck he spots someone sitting on the rim of the cracked plexiglass dome. Where he and Killua had once watched the ocean.

"I take it you didn't come here to cry on my shoulder," says Bisky, when Gon takes a seat beside her.

She hands him a flask. It is pink-enamelled and gem-encrusted and mostly empty. Its contents burn all the way down his throat.

"A lot of people died over this bullshit," Bisky observes, and they look at what's left of the foundering ship-within-a-ship. To Gon it looks like a sunken toy boat in a dirty bathtub.

Above them seabirds from the New Continent alight and peer curiously. The land beyond is rocky and full of trees and looks much like any other.

After a long silence Bisky speaks again: "So, I did some searching. When nobody could stop me. Found some things. Do you know why this Tier is built like a ship?"

Gon does not.

"Because it is one. Everything that connects it to the Black Whale can be sealed off and removed. Do you know why?"

Gon does not.

"This-" Bisky gestures "-Is all that was supposed to make it to the New Continent. Beside the King's suite, there's a chamber with fourteen coffins."

Gon can do this math: all but one of the Princes, and the King.

"I unravelled what I could of the nen curse that made them all lose their minds back there. It feeds off sacrifices. A blood ritual. In this day and age." 

"They were going to drown us?"

Bisky takes her flask back and drains it. "Yep."

Gon doesn't know how that could be possible. Someone would do something. Wouldn't they?

"Why? How? We would've been lost at sea. Look, I couldn't believe it either. How could Kakin get away with butchering a couple hundred thousand people every other generation for their Succession rite. It's ludicrous. But, well. You're not old enough to remember the Ainerman genocide, are you."

Gon shakes his head.

"Way before your time. I'll spare you the details - an ethnic minority group that lived in Kakin, accused of rebelling against the monarchy, purged during their last civil war. Right around the time the old King took the throne. That would've been about the same scale. So maybe... I don't know."

Gon doesn't know either.

"I guess, what I'm trying to say is, the only hero here was Illumi Zoldyck. Sure, he did it for a truckload of jenny, probably, but he saved tens of thousands of lives. For the wrong reasons. You... you cost some people theirs who might've otherwise made it for what you thought were the right reasons. I'm not a philosopher, but-"

Bisky turns to look at him.

"I don't think you're a bad person, Gon. I don't think you're old enough to be anything, yet. But you are becoming what you will be. So, be careful where you go from here, or you'll end up somewhere you won't like."

Bisky doesn't think that one of those places will be a farmer or a schoolteacher, so she tells him how she dealt with Camilla and Benjamin. The same thing Gon should do, if he's faced with opponents whose powers he doesn't understand, who are too strong for him, and he isn't ready to die yet. She let them beat each other to a pulp while she protected the structural integrity of the ship.

Now that Gon thinks of it, if the floor between Tier 1 and 2 had cracked, it would've dumped hundreds of thousands of gallons of water on everyone's heads. 

The way she dealt with the winners wasn't very heroic, either. Hit and run, with Cookie to give her her strength back in between. Just as Cookie could give Gon a night's rest in an hour and a year's training in a month, Bisky's ability can give her an hour's rest in a minute. A minute's rest in a few seconds. She nickel and dimed every ounce of power Benjamin and Camilla had away, then went in for the kill when they couldn't defend themselves.

Gon doesn't have to ask Killua what 'attrition' means, because Bisky tells him.

"Sorry if you were hoping for a better story. I've still got a lot of things left I want to do."

Gon shakes his head. After Pitou, his insistence on beating Razor the right way, the proper way, feels childish and stupid. 

"That said, I don't think I'll be around as long as you will. I hope not, anyway. So promise me something. If Fugetsu ever looks like she's getting ready to throw the same kind of party, you'll kill her first."

Gon promises.

"Good. I think that'll make things right with karma, if anything can." 

She shooes him away. "Go see Killua. He's still pretty cut up about this. And unlike you, he won't sit and listen to my lectures. Unless I hit him first - I don't really feel like doing that right now."

Killua's been given quarters with the other Hunters on Tier 3. He has his own room. The door isn't locked.

Gon senses Killua's aura from within and knows that Killua will sense his too - there's no point in knocking.

Killua sits on an unmade bed with his arm around his knee. If Gon had seen Killua back down from his fight with Illumi during the Hunter Exam - seen his face when he pierced Bodoro's heart - he would have recalled Killua's expression. 

Gon knows it still. It is what lurks behind Killua's faint, fond smiles for Gon, when Gon is happy, and he saw it on Tserriednich's face briefly before he died.

It isn't bloodlust. It isn't anger.

Killua is going to leave him.

"It was my fault," says Killua.

"No it wasn't," says Gon.

Killua has that strip of cloth with the piece of metal on it in his hands. He twists this while he speaks. 

"I could've kept you from doing it. I could've stopped you."

Gon finds Killua's lies to be sweet, most of the time, and mostly in Gon's favour; these ones are neither. "No," Gon says, "You were scared. You couldn't do anything."

Killua sinks deeper out of reach. That was the wrong thing to say. "Gon. I wasn't. I didn't _know_ what to do. You had an idea, and--"

"I acted."

"I could've never showed you how to do it in the first place," Killua adds, and Gon thinks that lie is at least a little sweet. "I showed you how to do a lot of things I shouldn't."

"So?"

"So." Killua isn't getting angry. He should be getting angry. Why isn't he mad at Gon? "What do you think other people would think if they knew what we did?"

What a stupid reason to be upset. "Who cares? It doesn't matter. They weren't there. They don't get a say."

"We have to live in the world with other people, Gon. They do."

"No they _don't_." They're wrong, they don't know, they have no idea, Gon was-- _Killua_ was scared, and they were going to die, and it hurt so much, and he thought he would never get back up again and he couldn't _help_ anyone and it was so loud and Killua was shaking and he was trying so hard not to cry, he didn't cry, even though he wanted to _scream_ , no no NO, not him, he's all Gon has left, Killua was going to die because he had to come back for Gon, if Gon hadn't been there--

Gon doesn't realize that he is breathing through his teeth.

Killua looks sorry for him.

"They don't get to say anything about the Prince. They don't know what he did." What he was still doing. What he did to Killua. They don’t know that Gon understands what the Prince would have done to Killua if Killua had been less resistant to his poison; that Gon understands that Killua understands, too; that Gon sometimes dreams about it and it boils over into hate in his waking hours because Killua has had this and worse done to him before.

Then Tserriednich would have skinned Killua alive and put back him together like a broken puppet. "They don't know what _she_ did to _Kite_."

What little colour there is left in Killua's cheeks drains away.

"Ah," he says. "Okay, Gon."

"Killua," Gon says, and Killua doesn't respond to his name.

Gon's made another mistake. He's made it worse. Killua is going to have to go away and never come back. Killua’s pain deepens; his lip trembles; he is going to go away forever.

"Gon, you should g--" 

"Killua, let's get married."

Killua blinks. "...What?"

"Then you don't have to leave."

"... _What_?" Killua blinks again, and a hint of an emotion that isn't misery seeps back into his eyes. "Did you just ask me to marry you?"

Did Illumi lie to him? "Why not?"

"You moron." Something dumbfounded, lopsided, twists the outermost edges of Killua’s frown upward. "You can't ask me that."

"Why not?"

"Because." Killua wipes his face. "You don't want to be a Zoldyck, trust me."

No, Gon doesn't, but he will if he has to. "We'll elope."

Killua is making a very soft noise that is incredulity, mirth, and sorrow all at once. "Oh my god, you're an idiot."

Killua exhales what he can of his grief in a sad laugh. Gon is still so naive about so much. He doesn’t really understand what he’s done - why would he, he isn’t Killua, Killua the one who does understand and should have known better - and he needs comfort. Killua can offer him that much, at least.

"Okay, okay." Killua pats the bed beside him. "You can stay here for a bit. So long as you don't propose to me again."

Gon sits. He wraps his arms around his knees, too. He doesn’t say anything else. 

Killua doesn’t say anything, either.

Killua listens to Gon cry himself to sleep. He catches Gon before Gon falls off the bunk and pulls him onto his chest. Their auras blend together; Killua has neither the strength nor the will to resist it.

It no longer feels like it’s going to tear him apart from the inside. Killua knows it won’t, now - the same way he knows that no matter how much it hurts electricity isn’t going to stop his heart, anymore. He can endure it.

Gon has bad dreams. He shifts and moans and mutters, the same way Killua used to after jobs, when he was just a kid. Killua rubs his back like the butlers did for him when his mother wasn’t looking.

It’s the same back Killua has been watching for two years now. Always a stride ahead; pointing, running. Laughing. Hunched, sobbing at his own weakness. Trembling, muscles rippled with the strain of restraining his rage. Killua knows the back of Gon’s head as well as he knows how to move silently behind it.

 _Those in the shadows walk together,_ but-

Walking in the shadows is a choice. Killua walked away from Kukuroo Mountain. In the end, Killua pulled the needle out with his own hands. No matter how strong Gon’s pull, Killua could choose to walk in the other direction. No matter how deep the darkness behind him, Killua now knows he won’t disappear. He can endure it.

Can’t he?

Killua can see the aftermath of their choice in his mind’s eye clearly, something Gon will not be able to do for many years. He has done worse, for worse reasons, in less justifiable circumstances. He has examined them before and after; planned and executed them, down to the last detail. Even were the blame for this entirely Gon’s own Killua has still killed more people than he has, and likely ever will.

Gon has always known that and has never spurned him for it. Killua was careful to remind Gon that he had taken more innocent lives for material gain than the Bombers; that he had himself tortured and mutilated others in the same way the fourth Prince had.

Known it, yes, but understood it?

Gon never answered when Killua had asked him that question about East Gorteau’s own extermination teams. Killua had gone alone to preserve what innocence Gon had left.

Gon will start to understand now. 

There will be no more hiding in the shadows cast by his light.

Killua realizes belatedly that Gon is watching him. He doesn’t know when Gon awoke, or for how long he has been doing this.

Killua doesn’t know what to say to him. There is nothing he can say that will make any of it better. There are things he should say that he can’t bear to.

“What should I have done?” Gon asks.

Killua has thought of little else for days. He has constructed and deconstructed everything that happened in his mind from every conceivable angle; broken it apart piece by piece and put it back together again to see if the sum of the parts would be less wretched than staring down at either the corpse of his lover or those of his friends.

Killua does not go back for Gon; Gon dies. Killua goes back for Gon and they try to escape to safety; Gon dies, they both do, or they succeed. What then? Do the Hei-Ly win and slaughter as they see fit? Do the Kakin soldiers regain control of the crowd, or do they start firing into it? Is there less panic, or does it last longer, and are more people trampled or crushed within? All Killua accomplishes in either case is to protect himself.

Killua kills Benjamin and Camilla before they can wreak havoc on the ship’s systems. Bisky held him back when he tried; her battle experience is vastly beyond his. Like as not this ends with Killua’s death and failure, followed necessarily by Gon’s at the mercy of the crowd. The only scenario where he wins is the one in which he kills them in cold blood. Preemptively, days before the King.

If Killua succeeds and is not caught he will never know what they would have done. He will be exactly what his family made him into. If he fails and is caught he is executed; Gon would never stand by and let this happen; Gon would fight; again, Gon dies.

Assuming this didn’t make the backlash of the nen curse worse than it was and kill them all.

“Melody,” says Killua, “We should have looked for her.”

It is the only viable option he has come up with in all his hours of agonizing: “She could’ve calmed everyone down. I think she probably even tried. But it’s not like earplugs block out all sound - if somebody can avoid her ability using a couple of pieces of foam, you must have to be able to hear it clearly.” And it had been loud, so loud that only screams and gunfire carried. “But, you remember the--”

“Emergency announcement.”

Killua smiles faintly. Of course he does. Gon probably gets it already. He finishes his explanation regardless: “Yeah. I heard every word of that, every time. If I’d used whatever aura I had left to get to Melody, take her out of the crowd, find the PA, or some circuit that led to it or something and a phone, then she used her ability - maybe that works.” Assuming the passengers would remain settled. Assuming they would queue. Assuming the soldiers could have been talked down and the mafia forced clear. That was the only real chance they had of a better outcome. 

Gon is deep in thought. “You really think that would have worked?” 

“Yeah.” Killua wills the other half of that conclusion not to show. That it would have meant leaving Gon behind; if Killua had left him and Gon had died, what lay on the other side is every inch as ugly as the other side of Gon’s own precipice where he is alone by his own doing. “Just trying to imagine a world where I would’ve come up with that in time.”

“Maybe this one.”

“No, Gon, I didn’t.” Even though Gon had asked him to be the voice of reason. He’d failed. “I couldn’t--”

“How do you know? I never asked you.”

It takes a second for Killua to close his mouth.

“Maybe you would have. Maybe we would have come up with something better, together. I never asked. Next time I will.”

Killua doesn’t speak for a very long time. When he does, he looks Gon in the eye and his own eyes are as black as they were in the jungles of East Gorteau. “You promise?”

Gon sticks out his hand. Just like Mito taught him.

Killua shakes his head. He bites into his thumb, and gestures for Gon to do the same. When Gon presses the wounds together it leaves a smear of mingled blood on both pads. 

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” Gon promises.

“I’ll hold you to it,” Killua promises, too.

They lay down together and this escalates in the way it always does of late. This is an even easier method of chasing catharsis together than it is alone. Killua won’t open his legs. So Gon climbs into his lap instead. It will take Gon a long time to learn to enjoy this, but Killua does, a lot, and Gon jerks himself off while watching his face.

In the aftermath, Gon asks Killua if he plans to stay.

“Shouldn’t you have asked me that first?” That faint smile is slightly less pitiless.

Gon shakes his head.

“I told you I’d come with you to the Dark Continent.” Killua nods. “I will. Do you remember what you told me?”

Gon remembers.

Killua goes to breakfast without him.

The new schedule for mealtimes is posted on the wall outside the food court. With just the Hunters and the crew now aboard, only a few areas will provide service. 

The murmurs start as soon as Gon takes his tray. Hunters - subtly and unsubtly - shift away when he nears. There are wide-eyed glances of surprise, trepidation, and venom everywhere he looks.

Gon goes to sit across from Killua, one seat to the left. Killua has eaten a quarter of a cup of yogurt while enduring the same treatment. His bangs conceal his expression well enough from a distance; up close, it pricks the corners of Gon's eyes and fills the back of his throat with so much mucous that his voice will crack if he speaks.

It is the only reason he doesn't stand on the table and shout at them all. 

The other Hunters avoid them, which is fine by Gon. It feels awkward and bad to be around them. The crew finds something for them to do: Gon searches for bodies in the rubble while Killua finds faults in their electrical system in need of repair. There is no place yet for the Black Whale to dry dock on the New Continent, so the refit will take place at anchor in the harbour.

It's hard to be around Killua sometimes, too. He says nothing, but Killua's hurt shows in the way he moves, and speaks, and even looks at things, and it reminds Gon that this is his fault. Standing close to him, Killua's aura makes him think of awful things. When Killua suggests that Gon not move in with him, Gon agrees. Killua does let him stay the night from time to time; in the morning, Gon's jacket and shoes are left meaningfully by the door.

Gon doesn't want to be around Leorio either, so he finds his own places to sleep. He wanders the empty corridors and rooms and halls and shops and they seem to him like ancient ruins. He goes to many places he never went while they were underway; even the places he has been now seem strange and different. It sparks a sense of discovery that keeps him occupied, and he wonders if this is how Ging feels. Four-poster beds and jewelry in drawers on Tier 2 are relics left behind by the nobility of a lost civilization; the newly drained Tier 5 and all its waterlogged clothing and stores are the aftermath of a legendary flood.

He dozes on mattresses made from a full salary's worth of silk and down; he curls up in a pile of blankets in a maintenance closet or out under the open sky. He dreams of a dead foxbear cub by the side of the road with its guts hanging out, of Hanzo's tabi on his head crushing his skull until his eyes pop, of the climber torn apart by winged animals during the Hunter exam and of suffocating in the belly of that frog with Killua. He dreams of his own bed with Killua's sneakers tucked neatly beside it and of Killua with his shorts pulled down beneath the fourth Prince. He dreams that the woman whose lap he is in tells him that Killua is a good boy and that he is a good boy too. He dreams of Pitou's eyes and how they gleamed in the dark and how it felt to pull her apart with his bare hands. He dreams of falling off the Black Whale and how it would feel to drown in the ocean.

Once, he wakes up to Killua holding his hand. They don't talk about it.

Before the Black Whale sets sail again, Sun-bin tracks him down. One of his sleeves is pinned up over his elbow. 

"Nice digs." Sun-bin nods to Gon's collection of found objects. He holds up his remaining hand to ward off the next natural question. "Before you say anything, yes. But you also blew the head off the Hei-Ly guy that was about to shank my kidneys, so I'll call it a wash."

At first, Gon doesn't think that could be fair. Then he recalls Ikalgo's sliced tentacles. Maybe it is fair.

"We still owe you. You helped us out and never asked for a damn thing. I've got Ittoku's job now. I'll take one for the team."

Gon congratulates him on his promotion. He asks about Theta.

"She's fine. We don't put people with support abilities front and center. The King's calling for amnesty over the Succession - guess you know that - but that'll extend as far as her authority does, you know? Tserriednich's people might still come for her. She's safer with us. Speaking of which, I know you've got to serve out your contract and all, but." Sun-bin slings his arm around Gon's shoulders, from the other side, same as ever. "You can take us up on the same deal. You and that boyfriend of yours. We've got the Hei-Ly on the ropes, thanks to you. Plenty of work left to do to smoke the rest of them out back in Kakin. We'd love to have you along for the ride."

Gon thanks him for the offer. He hasn't thought of what he'll do after the Dark Continent. 

"Well, keep us in mind." Sun-bin gives him a last squeeze, harder than he has before, and adds, "My grandmother'll cook you something."

Before he leaves, Gon asks Sun-bin what Feitan called him.

"Oh." Sun-bin laughs. "Ah, not a nice word. Back when Kakin was an empire the old royal court used to capture slaves from the outlying islands. They were, uh, considered exotic. The boys they'd train to be acrobats and sometimes use for - well, geez, I'm sure you're old enough to guess. We still use the word for hookers that come from overseas. Especially the young ones."

Gon thinks it would be nice to be an acrobat.

No one seems to know what happened to Kurapika. Oito is alone on her lifeboat with the dead Prince when it is recovered. There are rumours among the passengers and crew about a "red-eyed monster" who fought his way to the front of the evacuating VIPs and forced them back while one lifeboat with a single rich-looking Kakin woman was set on it.

"The chain guy? He went overboard with the boss," Kalluto confirms over a Strawbacks matcha latte, the day before he leaves. Killua has turned the machines back on for them. "He got up to the lifeboats about the same time we did."

Gon thought they had a truce.

"We did. He attacked first."

Gon wonders if that was because they were putting loot on a lifeboat instead of people.

Kalluto smiles brightly. "Maybe. Or maybe it was because the boss told him the eyes he had were fakes."

They overhear Feitan, who is leaning over the counter to await his drink, ask Killua if he is as sweet as his brother. Killua asks Feitan if he wants hot chocolate in his eyes instead of his coffee.

"Were they?"

"Oh, no." Kalluto covers a laugh with his sleeve. "We've got them now, though. Should be enough to buy our way back home. Just as soon as we find the boss. There's no way that did him in."

Gon has his doubts that that did in Kurapika, either. But he's not allowed off the ship to check.

"Mm. So I heard. Take care of Kil, would you? He's soft about that stuff."

Kalluto gives Gon a kiss on the lips, this time, before he goes. Killua is too busy arguing with Feitan to notice.

Kalluto tells his big brother to enjoy the Dark Continent.

They dredge and drain Tier 1. The new bridge is at the forecastle of Tier 2; Gon is astonished and amused to learn that there are words he knows that Killua doesn't when Killua tries to say that one. The reassembled loading cranes on the uppermost deck can only lift so much: the giant anemone that was Camilla has to be cut into lobes with a chainsaw and removed piece by piece. Since he can bound to wherever the crane needs to go within seconds - not to mention survive a fall off the edge - Gon acts as signaller. After the deck has been cleaned in Tyhecks suits with mops, followed by a pressure washer, Tier 1's flat surface is used for weatherproof storage. 

It will also serve as the arena for their continued training. Bisky is still aboard; Bisky gives them a few weeks off to let their aura reserves recuperate, then it's back to the grindstone. 

Knov sees them off before they are to raise the anchor. He had agreed to go as far as the New Continent, but no further. Gon hasn't seen him since the voyage started; what should have been a fond reunion is sour. For some reason, Knov looks most disappointed in Killua.

Gon wants to ask Knov what he thinks he would have done in their place. Whether or not he would have had the insight to come up with it in their situation, the strength to pull it off, and the courage to see it through. Gon wants to ask this of all the people who whisper about him and point and clear the room when he's in it. It makes him angry; when they do it to Killua, and to Bisky, it makes him even angrier.

"That's just the way people are," Bisky tells him, as they watch Killua try to lift a shipping container as punishment for losing to Gon in a round of _gyo_ , "Guilt by association. If somebody's wronged you, anybody who sticks with them has wronged you by proxy, right."

To Gon that seems petty and mean.

"Oh I used to think that way myself, back in the day. As I got older I came to realize that people who've learned from a mistake can come out the other end a whole lot wiser than those who never made it in the first place. Not being able to see past them makes you miss out on some of the best things around." She nods to Killua, who is red-faced and cursing after having dropped a corner on a _ken_ -coated toe. "Besides, everybody makes mistakes, so you might as well damn yourself, too."

Beyond drills in the fundamentals of nen to increase their well-roundedness, their lessons now include how to tamp down on their own power. Better control and direction. Non-lethal takedowns. Gon and Killua both know the reason for this, so the mood at these is always somber. Killua already knows a lot about the latter, too; Bisky delegates some of Gon's training to him.

Killua teaches Gon rhythm echo. Gon thinks of what the Chairman said about it; that it wasn’t for a nice boy like him. These words seem foolish now.

The other lessons are preparation for the Dark Continent. What Bisky taught them before was with an eye to surviving the Succession - now, they will be geared toward surviving the wilderness. Bisky plays stand-in for a beast they have no hope of overpowering and must outsmart. She's very convincing; it's very different from tracking a person. She stalks them too. She takes away their food and shelter and forces them to fend for themselves. She has them read biology and botany and know the foundational structures of organisms and their known behaviour by heart. 

Gon likes these. They are simple, fun, and natural. The books aren't stuffy; they're the kind he enjoys, with pictures and descriptions of animals. Killua can't even tell when the rain is about to turn to hail or what to do about it. Gon instructs him, and Bisky approves.

Gon learns his lessons well. The people who follow him through the ship two weeks into the voyage are neither as cunning as Bisky nor as silent as Killua. When they encircle him he is reminded of the would-be Hunters who surrounded Hisoka during the exam.

Bisky told them to make sure they always gave a cornered animal a route of escape. Otherwise it would have no choice but to attack.

"Yeah, me too," Killua confirms when Gon asks him if he's run into the same problem, "Total amateur hour, though. Not a big deal."

They agree that it's best if they watch one another's backs, even so. Killua knows a lot about playing this kind of game: it's important not to be in the same place at the same time every day. Especially alone. Once you fall into a pattern, people can predict your actions. And when they can predict your actions, they can start to plan. Planning allows people to come up with very clever traps they would never be able to put together on the fly, like they did for the Bombers.

It's still uncomfortable to be around Killua, but the distraction of watches and counterattacks and finding new places to go takes the edge off. 

Killua is ready with water when Gon starts awake, drenched in sweat. He says nothing and rubs his back when Gon curls up against the wall in the middle of the night, shaking; his eyes do not judge when Gon rips a jammed door off its hinges and punches it until it breaks.

Gon makes sure that Killua brushes his teeth. That Killua gets to sleep, too. He finds Killua a skateboard.

It isn't all bad. They do make new friends on the rest of the voyage. The isolation has hurt Killua more than it has Gon - Killua has started to hang around the crew in his free time. The crew knows what Gon and Killua did, but none of them were there and they also know how quickly the disaster happened and that the design of the ship put those in charge of directing the passengers in an impossible situation. Those who raised the alarm feel responsible; others for focusing emergency repairs over an ad hoc manual override of the Tier system. None of them mind his presence. In time they joke with him and invite him on their smoke breaks and to the wardroom to watch the handful of Kollywood DVDs they've got.

One of them spots Gon watching and waves him over, cigarette in hand. "So, you're the boyfriend, eh?"

Gon is surprised that Killua would talk about him like that.

"No, no - we might not be nen users like you-" The crew on Tier 1 all heard Kurapika's announcement. "-But we have got binoculars." 

"Why didn't you stop us?"

"What are we going to do? Row out there and ask you to please stop using your magic? You didn't cause _that_ much trouble. Besides, you looked like you were having a nice time. Young love and all that. It was sweet."

Gon gets him to swear that he won't tell this to Killua under any circumstances. Killua would have a heart attack, and worse, never fool around with him outside again.

A handful of the soldiers and bodyguards whose Princes are now dead have stayed on for the rest of the voyage. Gon recognizes the one Killua overheard talking about combination nen. Gon asks him about it. 

"I wouldn't, if I were you," Balsamico cautions him, "It's very dangerous. It takes years to master." Especially if the two nen users aren't evenly matched: the stronger one risks overwhelming the weaker, damaging their aura nodes beyond repair, or even killing them.

Gon seems skeptical, so Balsamico offers: "If you've got someone in mind, I could teach you. It'll take about six months of practice to make contact with one another's auras. Slightly less if you have the same nen type and you know each other very well."

Gon asks how long it would take to learn to use his partner's aura. Balsamico warns him to never, ever do that. If his partner did not extricate himself perfectly afterward he or Gon could lose that part themselves to the other forever.

Gon bolts back to Killua as fast as he can. Gets Killua to show him that he can do Godspeed, and use his electricity, and even do the thing with his mind. Gon does Rock, Paper, and Scissors. When they're done, Gon falls to his knees. He thinks of what Tsezguerra told him about what Killua did after dodgeball. That it had to be perfect, without practice, the first time or all three of them would have died.

Killua wonders what got into him all of a sudden. When Gon tells him, Killua shakes his head. "I wouldn't put too much stock in that. I think it's more likely we figured out something he doesn't know. Kakin's got nen traditions we don't, but they're wrong about some things."

Killua takes a seat beside Gon while Gon calms down. "Like, for example, they think that if you use any nen ability - even a healing one - on somebody, you awaken nen in that person. For the most part it looks like it's true, but they're wrong that there are no exceptions. That nobody's found a way around it. I know they have." Killua points to his forehead. “I had a nen ability used on me when I was a kid and my aura nodes were closed until we met Wing."

Killua could sense Illumi's aura, though. He even correctly linked it to the feeling they got from the other nen users on the 200th floor of Heaven's Arena.

"Sure, and you instinctively used _zetsu_ around animals before you knew what it was. Point is, my family's figured out a way around that. Makes sense, you know? If you had to move through a room full of people to do a job and use an ability to remain unseen you wouldn't want to awaken a couple dozen nen users every time."

Gon thinks he knows where this is going.

"So we probably know something nobody else does. Or at least, not a lot of other people do. Maybe it's because we saw a lot of Dark Continent nen in East Gorteau - the Ants broke a lot of known nen rules." Killua looks stern. "I wouldn't go blabbing about it. It might make the difference between life and death in a fight someday."

Ging awaits them on the beach when they arrive at the Dark Continent at last. He stands ankle-deep in the sea with his knuckles on his hips, as if his presence alone will slow the ship's approach, clad in hand-sewn cloak of multicoloured furs and a hat made out of a fringed lizard.

Gon takes a running leap off the side of the Black Whale and slides the rest of the way down, followed by Killua, who uses static to slow their fall so that neither of them splatter against the water's surface. Gon dashes up to Ging, delighted. Ging pats him hesitantly on the shoulder.

"Took you long enough!" Ging glances past him at Killua. "Still dragging that other kid around, huh."

This annoys Gon more than it should. "I told you. Killua is my..."

Gon has lost the words.

"...Fiancé," finishes Killua in the sly tone he uses to lie to adults. When Ging mutters to himself, aghast, and turns away, Killua flashes a secret smirk for Gon alone.

Pariston is curled up back at camp in what remains of a threadbare suit, clutching a battered eco-friendly ceramic Strawbacks cup full of water. He loathes every single waist-high, blood-sucking insect that tries to eat them - of which there are many - so Ging has tasked him to watch their supplies and shovel dragon dung while Ging explores inland.

While Ging's debrief to the assembled Hunters is a rousing, breathless tale of adventure presented in as dour a manner as can be believed, Pariston's beaming lecture is a four-hour litany of gripes entitled "10,001 WAYS TO DIE" in multicoloured Papyrus font above every slide. 

Gon and Killua earn a grunt of Ging's approval for sitting off in a corner by themselves.

Despite Ging and Pariston's best efforts at warning them, fully half of the Hunters who arrived at the Dark Continent die within the first week of their arrival, including Beyond. Particularly ruthless are the enormous burrowing landpreys that burst from the ground with seemingly no warning to swallow their prey whole. Gon can sense the vibrations of their movement with his bare feet; Killua can stun them before they break the surface. Ging can punch them through the earth.

Bisky decides after a single outing that her curiosity has been amply satisfied. She concurs with the former Chairman's proclamation wholeheartedly: this place is bullshit.

She is one of the first to use Knov and Takine's relay system back to the New Continent. And from there to New Kakin. It is ostensibly for supplies; many of the expedition members signed on only after being assured that it could transport them, too.

It offers Gon the opportunity to write a letter back home - back to Mito - for the first time since the voyage began.

He doesn't know what to tell her.

He starts and stops, many times. He draws circles on the page. He feels like he should tell her about Killua.

Why? 

He's told her about Killua before. Killua was the first thing he wrote to her about after he passed the Hunter Exam. That he made his first friend. That his friend was cool, that he had a skateboard, that his parents were assassins but he didn't want to be one.

There is a lot more Gon could write about Killua now. It's Gon's watch; Gon sees everything that he will never not see again in Killua's sleeping face: his cocky grins, his flushes over Kurapika and Leorio's bickering and any time Gon said anything nice to him. The moment his eyes were downcast, that no one else saw, before he stepped up to fight Jones at the Trick Tower, and how they stared straight forward and never slipped again until Jones was dead.

Killua's dread at the prospect of fighting Nobunaga to make their escape from the Phantom Troupe; how he'd stepped forward to do it anyway. The eternity that was less than a second when Gon realized that if Killua had moved the wrong way in their dodgeball game, Gon would have lost his friend forever. 

Killua's tears over Gon, not Kite, and the way they smelled before Gon's consciousness fully returned, and how this had made him angry. How soft-spoken and withdrawn Killua had become after that, and how much that had made things worse.

Things will never be the same between them again.

Just as things were never the same between them after they spent the night shoulder-to-shoulder during the Hunter exam. Just as they were never the same after Killua walked away from his home with Gon. After they had learned nen together. After Gon had brought Killua to his own home, and told him that being with him made him happy. After the first time Killua kissed him.

As they were never the same after they escaped from Nobunaga. After the game against Razor; after the absolute faith Gon had placed in Killua had been rewarded with their lives; after it had been shattered to pieces in the NGL. After Pitou. After Tserriednich.

After Gon had felt how Killua felt from the inside.

If Killua left now it would be the same as cutting off his own arm. Gon would survive it. Someday, perhaps, Gon would be wiser and stronger for it. But there would be no denying that he had forever lost something important.

And Killua could leave. He's kept his promise.

Gon could leave, too.

Gon doesn't tell Mito about Killua. He doesn't know what words to use.

Gon tells Mito about his friends: about how dauntless and haunted Kurapika is, about how Leorio has the patience and kindness of the characters foreign sailors talk about from religious stories. About how Kalluto is pretty like a pressed flower and has befriended pain instead of enduring it like Killua; how Sun-bin is sensitive and generous even if the way he talks is rougher than the gangsters in Yorknew. That Bisky is a lot like his favourite person: that her lessons come from suffering, and that she never says so because the lies she tells are very sweet.

Gon tells Mito about the arcade and karaoke and about the waterslide. That the waterslide has gotten rusty and the water is gross and Killua doesn't want to go there anymore.

Gon tells Mito that the boat nearly sank. She'll probably read that in the news, eventually. That it was scary. Like the time a frog ate him. That he's very strong when he's afraid, and that sometimes that isn't good at all.

Gon tells Mito that a lot of people are dead because of him. He killed them. That some people think he should be dead, too, and that maybe they're right. That if she doesn't want him to come home, he'll understand.

Gon doesn't receive a reply for over a year.

They see Bisky off after breakfast; they walk past dozens of long black canvas bags awaiting their own turn at the portal. Killua flushes when Bisky hugs him; Gon hugs her back, hard. If Ging is a cool uncle, she is his cool aunt. 

She waves over her shoulder to both of them. They snap into _gyo_ simultaneously. 

_Watch out for each other._

"You heard the old lady," Killua shoves Gon playfully away from the exit. They both know that if he hadn't, they would've started to cry. "Let's go see what your old man has cooked up for us next."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References to the 'Ainerman genocide' shamelessly stolen from [goodnightfern](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodnightfern/pseuds/goodnightfern), who also helped beta read this whole thing for me. Thanks bud.


	9. Intimacy x and x Codependence - Part 8: Compromise | The Dark Continent (1 January 2002 - 1 January 2005)

What Ging has cooked up is a full-blown expedition. Now that everyone's gotten the lay of the land, it's time to press onward: somewhere to the north is a volcano that gushes rare earth elements. They leach into a river nearby, which is teeming with trace amounts. Ging's spotted it with his dragon, but he can't take his dragon too far inland without being harried by dragon-hawks. The V6 wants those metals; Ging wants to discover its source. He has the delegates' full support.

The expedition lasts six months. It begins with 50 Hunters and ends with 16. Gon loses track of how many times he's snatched from snapping jaws at Godspeed; how many times he grips Killua's wrist or shoulder or waist to keep him from doing something like stepping onto a lawn of fuzzy Grass Snakes before they burrow right up through his sneakers and under his skin like they did to the last Hunter who didn't watch his feet. Gon doesn't know how the others miss them: even if they camouflage their bodies, snakes still smell bad.

Their food is stolen or spoiled within the first eight weeks. Gon tests a morsel of everything they try to eat; sometimes it makes him violently sick. Killua never gets sick. Killua can eat anything. One of the Hunters jokes about eating Killua instead, but it's Killua's blood that saves them when something with venom gets into their wounds.

Gon is so hungry and thirsty and tired and alert the whole time that he thinks of nothing. When he has the chance to he sleeps like a stone. When they arrive at the volcano it feels like a dream: it gushes streams with a sheen like mercury. While Ging and a V6 engineer blast a path through the forest in order to divert those flows into the river, Gon and Killua hike to the top of the mountain.

It's hollow on the inside. Far, far down in the caves below there are caverns full of crystals that gleam like daylight, where the floors are littered with gems. Killua takes one that is both pink and white; Gon takes a blue-green one that is the same colour as Sun-bin's eyes. They take a crystal that hums when touched for Melody. A dark purple one for Kalluto. They take the most beautiful one for Bisky, one that is a different colour every time it is turned.

The way back is a little easier. They follow the river and there are fewer things beside it than there were. When they spot the Black Whale’s looming bulk on the horizon, one of the Hunters says it feels like home, and Gon does not agree. They are exhausted; Ging is triumphant. Ging grudgingly gives them two weeks off before their next outing.

Gon sets his pack down shortly after he gets inside and wakes up two days later in Killua's room. Killua is watching over him when he wakes; Gon drags Killua into bed and pins him there.

It has never occurred to Gon before to reflect on how restfully Killua always sleeps.

The only person who comes by while Killua does so is one of the other expedition Hunters, who invites them, groggily, to a party to celebrate their survival. Gon could take or leave it; he accepts on Killua's behalf.

The "party" turns out to be an excuse to get black-out drunk enough to bear recounting tales of their journey to the Hunters who remained back at base camp. The handful who were fortunate enough to return early due to illness or injury rather than a grisly demise are relieved anyone else made it back alive. One raises a toast to Gon for sniffing him out in a frilled apebear cave before more of him was fed to her young than just a hand. Two other expedition Hunters raise their glasses before they are all glowered into silence by the rest. Only Leorio comes within a fifteen-foot radius of the corner Gon has staked out for himself for the evening.

The alcohol does help smooth things over. Scattered smiles return. Followed hours later by laughter; the warmth and haze remind Gon of a fire, and the way a fire makes those gathered around it start talking. Gon stares into the coals, where Killua is mingling with the others as best he can, Professor Salty in hand, the cutting edges of their scorn unblunted. 

Gon asks Leorio if Killua will be able to drink with them someday. Like how his resistance to the nen poison had waned from time away from his family, maybe.

Gon already knows the answer from how gentle Leorio's smile is before he speaks. "I don't think so, Gon. Your immune system is constantly replacing itself, but not everything does. Some things can only bend so far or so many times before they'll never be the same again."

Gon no longer wonders why Killua doesn't have the same bad dreams. That part of Gon is wounded, inflamed, healing; that part of Killua is broken forever.

Getting the gems back to their recipients is a little tricky. Everything that goes back through the portal is inspected. To be sure it won't carry any diseases back with it or cause any unintended mishaps, Leorio tells them, but Gon thinks it's stupid to apply this to rocks. He and Killua have had them in their pockets this whole time and they're fine. They don't want them stolen or confiscated.

Gon suggests a plan before Killua does: lots of plants and medicines are banned in Kakin, so Sun-bin has taught him about all kinds of ways to sneak them into the country. Slip them into cargo that has already been inspected, or into the belongings of someone who has been cleared to go. Then send a message back telling someone they trust where they can find it. That way they don't need an accomplice; nobody else will get in trouble.

Gon isn't surprised that Killua already knows how to do this. He watches Killua carefully: the casual way he walks, the way he misdirects with his other hand; the annoyed face he pulls when he makes contact is so convincing that the other Hunter apologizes to him.

Gon will do it himself next time.

The Hunters begin to adapt to their new surroundings. They make sense of their new place in the ecosystem: the enormous beasts that traverse the landscape seem at first to be the most terrifying, but they are in truth the least of threats. Humans are as insects to them. Not worth the energy to kill for a meal, beneath notice until they land on their skin or stumble into their homes. Those things that prey upon men are akin to those that do in the rest of the world. Large predators, smaller predators that hunt in packs, yet smaller creatures with defensive venoms. Poisonous plants that do not want to be eaten. Parasites and those insects that cause disease.

They are to be catalogued, understood - effective weapons and medicines sought.

The second expedition loses less than half its members. In the third all but a handful return safely with fluid from a spring that replenishes nen.

Gon and Killua are not among them.

They are fording a murky river when Ging is dragged under. He surfaces, coughing and spluttering, to warn them of leeches the size of small trees. He crushed its heart with his nen ability. Gon uses Scissors to the same good effect when he feels something slimy wrap around his thigh; there are a few other dunks, but no one who has survived this far is without a strong combat ability.

Gon reaches for Killua in the same moment that Killua reaches for him. They are too far apart. The Hunters are waist-deep in water and if Killua uses his hatsu, he will kill them all.

Gon sees the instant Killua decides to die. And it makes him angry. So angry that Gon dives in after him and the creature that has him, blind, following nothing but touch and the sensation of the current and the sound of Killua's heartbeat. In his fury he ignores anything that bites him; anything that tries to pull him in the wrong direction, he blasts and slices through. 

By the time he reaches Killua at the bottom of the river, hundreds of meters from where they started, Gon has no nen and no breath left. He tears the leech apart with his bare hands and claws his way to the surface.

Everything is dark. Fragmented. Ging is there. He takes Killua. He touches Killua's neck and lifts up his shirt and lays his palm on it and Gon guesses that he is trying to restart Killua's heart. 

Gon has been left in the shallow part of the river. He is on his hands and knees. He weighs ten thousand pounds. The other Hunters gasp and point. Gon looks down at where they are pointing and there is a hole in his side that doesn't look real. It looks like a picture of him with part of it erased; like a fake photograph with part of it deleted.

Killua coughs up dark water.

Gon coughs up blood.

Gon regains consciousness once on the way back. There is a scent that awakens memories older than his thoughts. He is pressed against a cloth-draped chest. Killua's pale wrists are draped around the unshaven throat above him; it vibrates with a hummed tune that is as familiar as it is off-key. It is a lullaby.

Colours return with consciousness in the medical bay. It's very bright and there are lots of things sticking out of him and Gon doesn't like it at all. When he struggles upright to look for Killua it hurts so much he blacks out again.

Leorio is mad at him. Leorio threatens to have him strapped to his bed and Gon is too weak to argue. He is too weak to do much of anything; Leorio has to feed him and clean up after him and Gon hates this even worse, even though Leorio doesn't seem to mind. Gon sleeps like a cat for weeks - awake only for a handful of hours a day.

Killua sleeps with his eyes open. He doesn't respond when Gon talks to him. Leorio spends a lot of time with him, with his hand on Killua's forehead, day after day. Gon uses _gyo_ once and has to squint against the brightness of all the nen. 

When Killua speaks his first words, Leorio sighs like a man who has just heard his child was born safely, or whose boat pulled into harbour just ahead of a storm. They talk for a while with Leorio touching parts of Killua's face and moving his fingers while Killua follows them with his eyes. Then he lets Killua rest and goes to sit near Gon.

"I don't think I could've pulled that off if you hadn't gone and gotten your skull cracked open by the Phantom Troupe," Leorio confesses, "Or gotten Killua's brain baked by a nen beast."

Gon doesn't know what Leorio is trying to say.

Leorio ruffles Gon's hair. "If nothing else, thanks for making me a better doctor. You stupid, stupid, stupid kid."

Gon learns that he has the kind of wound that would take another person years to recover from, if they ever did; it takes him weeks more to get back on his feet. Even then he's feeble and in pain for months after - they've done weird things like put his intestines in a different place for a while so that there's a bag attached to his stomach, then they have to go put that back where it used to be when he's healed. Gon doesn't really understand; he only knows that he is endlessly frustrated.

And still angry. Killua is sitting up, at last - Killua always takes forever to heal. As soon as they are alone Gon rounds on him.

"I _told_ you." Gon's fists are balled. "You don't _get_ to be selfish. I--"

"You're right," Killua cuts him off.

Gon didn't think it would be that easy. He pauses, wary.

Killua's tone and his eyes are sharp and narrow. "I should have talked to you, first. Just like we promised. We decide these things together."

Gon did promise. He doesn't know what to do with his anger now. He doesn't want to cry. He imagines shoving over a nearby tray of supplies; he imagines shouting at Killua anyway; he imagines how stupid those would be.

"I don't want anything to eat you," Gon says.

"Me neither," Killua says. He pats the bed beside him.

They lean against one another.

“What should I have done?” Killua asks.

“Fought harder,” Gon tells him, “Grabbed onto something. Struggled. It would’ve made it a lot easier for me. You don’t - you can’t just give up. Not ever. Because I’m coming for you, no matter what.”

“Even if it gets us both killed?” Killua’s grin is lopsided, one-toothed, and wan.

“Especially if it gets us both killed,” Gon tells him, and means every word.

That sounds really stupid out loud, even to Gon. “What about me?” He asks, when Killua is finished snickering at him.

"Same," Killua admits. "Keep fighting. I'm coming for you no matter what. But I don't have to tell you that, do I?"

Gon doesn't want that; if he dies, he doesn't want Killua to die too. But if he dies, he doesn't get to choose what Killua does, does he?

Later Gon asks Killua if they should stay here. 

"I don't have any place better to be. Do you?"

Gon doesn't.

Killua nods. "Nah, let's stay here. For now. We're getting stronger out here, aren't we? We keep learning things nobody else knows." He looks thoughtful. "I think we're taking the wrong approach - that's the problem. We're reacting. That's why we're constantly off-balance. But it's not so different from back home. Even if they're weird, they're animals. Nen is nen, even if the rules are different. We can figure this out. We need to be the ones who act."

Gon understands. They need to stop thinking like prey. "We need to think like hunters."

They while away the boring part of healing - the part where they no longer feel awful but they're not healthy or strong enough to run around like they want to - coming up with ways to fix this. They talk with Leorio whenever he's free about what the science team has discovered. The types of animals and magical beasts they've found. Killua asks questions about nervous systems and signalling cascades and ion channels that quickly goes over Gon's head and makes him wish he still had a colouring book for Killua to draw what he means. Leorio brings them comics and a GameToy.

Careful of Gon's injuries, Killua uses his mouth more often. It feels better and more comes of it than when the women who visited Whale Island did it to him.

They hear back from Bisky first. She's at Heaven's Arena. Wing and Zushi are doing well - Zushi has a nen ability that he can't wait to show them when they get back. She thanks them for the gift; she instructs them not to send her anything else from the Dark Continent lest it land her and them in worse shit than they already are. 

Gems excluded, of course. They are always welcome to send her gems.

Gon and Killua grin at one another over the letter. Killua calls her a greedy old bat and hopes she never changes.

Sun-bin's letter to Gon is grateful, too. Turns out that rock he sent back leaves an impression of whoever touched it last. There are all kinds of ways Sun-bin could use that, so he can't let this gesture go unreturned. After all, Gon and his boyfriend will need funds when they get back, won't they? They'll need a place to live and they haven't earned anything in a year. Sun-bin will take care of it. If Gon comes across anything else he might like, he'd appreciate if Gon could send those, too. 

Sun-bin has even cleverer recommendations to get around the Association's inspections. He has signals Gon can use to identify his packages. It comes with a caveat that you can never know what somebody's nen ability is; that isn't true, Gon knows the nen ability of virtually all the Hunters here - Killua spent months watching them and listening to their conversations.

Killua gets a letter from Melody. He doesn't tell Gon what it says; Gon can tell that it upsets him a lot.

Mito's letter to Gon is two sentences long. She tells him that his grandmother passed away in the spring. She tells him that she loves him.

By the time Gon and Killua are well enough to head out on another expedition, Gon has spent enough time around the caged apebear cubs to know how to show them that he isn't a threat. He's memorized their markings; he knows what their patterns mean. He's let them climb all over him and lick his hair. 

He's noticed which beasts the landpreys never attack, like the herds of herbivorous raccoon-cats. He's practiced the way they walk through landprey territory, and finds it easy to replicate with their human-like forepaws, while Killua reads Leorio's textbooks on neurology nearby.

Gon's sniffed the fur and the hides of all the specimens the expeditions have brought back, as well as their droppings. He learns how different they smell when they're sick or scared.

Killua and Leorio have created an entire arsenal of anti-venoms and detoxicants for the expeditions that leave without him. Killua learns to make the apebear cubs raise the paw opposite of the one he tapped. Before long he learns to make them dance. To run through a maze he’s designed for them without having seen it before. To be afraid of the colour blue.

Gon makes him put them all back the way they were.

The seventh expedition doesn't lose a single Hunter. Killua and Gon keep pace with Ging the entire way.

There are chasms deeper than mountains to explore; there are lizards the size of cities. They cross one atop the other by mimicking the behaviour of the cleaner birds on the lizard's back. When a cleaner bird starts to squawk, Killua touches a feather and its song changes to one that welcomes them as friends.

The sunsets here have a purple in them they don't back home. In the northern parts bright silver rivers stream through the sky between the stars. 

Gon sends Sun-bin a magnetic beetle. He did it because he thought it was cute; in his reply letter Sun-bin raves about how it can surreptitiously wipe data from cell phones, harddrives, and credit cards. Gon liked how it bent Killua's aura sideways.

They go on the eighth to eleventh expeditions, too. Ging gripes bitterly about having a couple of gloomy kids tag along. Gon doesn't think they're gloomy; if he's a little more cautious around ravenous beasts and a little slower to leap off a waterfall into unknown waters, well, he's not a kid anymore. He has Killua to think about. Three is still too much company for Ging, sometimes. He blazes the trail on ahead. Gon and Killua have to pull him out of a tar pit, once, though Ging said he was fine and could've gotten out on his own at any time.

When it’s just the three of them, Killua and Gon have time alone together while Ging’s on watch. Ging quickly learns to make noise on his way back. Gon returns from his own to find Ging and Killua talking in hushed tones about a Greed Island card, once. Killua never looks at Ging the same way again after that.

They are a year and a half into the expedition as a whole when Ging takes Gon aside to tell him why marriage is a bad idea.

It is completely unnatural for two people to be together for their whole lives, Ging observes. All it does is cause them both misery. 

Gon asks him if that's why he always leaves everyone he meets behind.

"No. That's because I respect them. Everyone is their own person - you understand? They all have their own hopes, dreams, and goals. Their own paths. Sometimes those paths cross, and that's fine. If it makes you both happy. But one day they'll diverge, and if you force yourselves to stay together regardless, one person has to give up their dreams. They end up stunted. I wouldn't do that to anyone."

But Gon has already thought about this. From long ago. Killua told him that he was looking for his path. Gon knows that someday, he'll find it.

Killua has followed Gon's for long enough. When he does, Gon will follow him.

On the twelfth expedition they discover a grassland where many of the creatures have ink black eyes. Gon can tell that this makes Killua anxious; he can tell that Killua doesn't want to tell him why. They turn back early, and Killua lectures Leorio and Cheadle on the precautions they should take around these specimens.

Cheadle tells him there's no need: this is a known quantity. One of the old expeditions found these, though they were never able to contain an Ai in its native state. Killua bridles when they refer to it as a "calamity" and Gon guides him away before he says something he can't take back.

Leorio explains that the Ai itself doesn't have a corporeal form. It exists as a gas held together by aura; it is a parasite that binds to the aura of its host and lives inside them that way, though no one is certain how it does this. 

Killua glances to Gon; Gon remembers drowning inside Killua. Remembers looking out through Killua's eyes. They say nothing.

It is to some extent a mutually beneficial relationship, Leorio continues. The mates and offspring of Ai-infected creatures live longer, healthier lives than others and are more likely to reproduce. How this happens is also not known, only that the Ai gradually consumes the host's aura, so that the host itself's own life is shortened. 

"You can do it back to me, if you want," Gon offers when they're alone, and Killua shakes his head. That isn't what he's upset about.

Killua asks Leorio to study the Ai and learn as much as he can.

The thirteenth expedition marks the second year since they've arrived at the Dark Continent. Both of their 16th birthdays happen on the road to a toast from the other Hunters and a night spent together; neither celebrated their 15th.

Killua is the first to change. At first Gon thinks it's the lack of sweets out here: Killua's face loses its roundness and becomes full of lines and angles. It doesn't look bad at all; it looks very handsome, and it suits his pretty eyes, that have always looked like cat's eyes to Gon, very much. Silver hairs break out all over Killua's face. Ging teaches him how to shave. Pariston teaches him how to shave properly.

It takes two months after his growth spurt begins for Killua to be taller than Ging. In six he is taller than Pariston. In a year he will be taller than Leorio. His limbs seem to grow at different rates and with minds of their own with no sense of proportion to the rest of his body. They settle on powerful, and long.

Gon stares at Ging's stubble and the top of his head morosely. 

When Gon changes the first thing he notices is that he can no longer wear his old shorts. Before long he can't wear pants with no stretch without custom alterations, even the ones handed down by other grown men. His tank tops tear at the seams. He bowls Killua over in a sparring match without any nen for the first time ever, and Killua is never able to do it back to him again.

Gon grows upward slowly and arduously. He ends up exactly two inches taller than Ging. It takes him ages to grow a full beard, even when he's older; a few months on the trail and Killua will bristle like a salty old sailor and Killua hates this.

Killua hates long hair, too, even though it's practical for months spent without scissors. Gon shaves his head for him whenever they're back at the Black Whale. Killua thinks this is ugly. Gon doesn't mind it.

The expeditions get much easier. Gon has tamed a friendly man-sized bat to carry him across vast distances; Killua can get any animal to obey him so long as he's touching it. He can ride on the back of the bat and leap off whenever he needs to bait the dragon-hawks away from Ging. 

Even when it's too dangerous for the bat and the dragon, they find a solution: there is a marsh with mosquitoes that carry a disease that wiped out one of the previous expeditions, back in Netero's day. An incurable, burning nen fever that could be transmitted with a single bite. The swamp throngs with a blanket of them so thick it looks like fog and buzzes like a power line. On the other side is rumored to be a herb that can make any chemical known to man.

Killua lets one mosquito land on his fingertip. A tiny spark flows through it, and it flies off to spread that spark to every other insect it touches.

Gon adds his aura to Killua's and these sparks spread throughout the sky for miles. Killua's command is simple: to fly away, as high as they can. 

From afar they look like fireflies. Bats and cleaner birds snap them up out of the air.

When Gon and Killua trek back through the swamp it is very silent.

Sometimes, when they're miles away from base camp, and it is just him and Killua and sometimes Ging, the rest of the world doesn't seem real. Sometimes, when it's late at night and they're staring into the fire, Killua will tell him about his childhood. Bits and pieces, from which Gon can infer much of the rest. Later still, Gon tells Killua about Kite and the foxbear. About growing up on Whale Island.

Sometimes, jumping from a tree into a pond is exactly as fun as it used to be. Sometimes, chasing a three-horned-horse through a mushroom jungle feels exactly like chasing his old neighbour's dog around the yard, or chasing a magical beast through the forest. Sometimes, Gon rushes very far ahead. Sometimes, he hears Killua's laughter or his laboured breaths or his soft exclamation of worry, and he will slow down until they are side-by-side again.

On their last expedition before the Black Whale itself returns to resupply, Gon and Killua climb a World Tree. Not a scrawny, stunted one like the one they climbed years ago - a full-grown one the size of a mountain that bursts through the sky.

They leave Ging in the dust, who later says he wasn't really trying to race them. When the air becomes too thin to breathe, Killua runs a current through the water they carry and traps the oxygen around them with what he tells Gon are ions in the atmosphere.

From the top Gon sees stars no human before him has ever seen. 

He and Killua lay together to watch them careen across the sky. Gon asks Killua if he wants to go back.

"I'm free out here," says Killua, "I never thought I would be. Like, really free."

Gon doesn't understand.

"I didn't leave under my own power. Home, I mean. My dad let me go. He had to. My family's got connections all around the world. Eyes everywhere. Even in Kakin. I bet a butler was spying on us everywhere but Greed Island, the NGL, and East Gorteau. I'd just kind of accepted it. I'd never get away from them. Didn't matter, so long as they let me do what I want. But out here... they couldn't follow me even if they tried. Even if they made it through the portal, they couldn't track us. They'd get eaten alive. They'd suffocate trying to climb this. My mom can't know what I'm doing. Not even my dad could take me back."

Gon is surprised that this is the path that Killua would choose. To stay on the Dark Continent. But it isn't bad at all. Everywhere they go will be brand new. Every day will be an adventure. 

Gon enjoys this future in his mind until Killua speaks again.

"Gon. Does being with me still make you happy?"

It makes Gon a lot of different things, now, but this hasn't changed: "Happier than anything else in the world."

Killua cringes and reddens all over again. "...Then, yeah. Let's do it." 

Killua squeezes his hand.

"Do what?"

"I mean, I accept." Killua sounds flustered.

"Accept what?"

Killua covers his face with the other. "What do you think, moron." 

"Oh." Gon hasn't thought about that in years. "Here?"

"Yes, literally, at the top of this tree. Right now." 

Gon springs up on one knee.

Killua pushes him over. Then flops back, laughing. "Are you kidding me? No, not here. Who's going to officiate? Your dad? The bat? We're going back home."

"But you said you're free."

"I am." Killua rests his head against Gon's. "And it's a nice dream. You know what's even better than making your dreams come true?"

Gon doesn't. Ging does, though, and scuttles back down from his vantage point before they spot him. 

When they get back to the Black Whale, Ging writes to the members of his very first archaeological expedition team to tell them what he's been up to and ask them how they've been. He will never admit that he teared up. He will not attend the wedding.

For their last day in the Dark Continent, Gon and Killua go swimming. There's a water hole not far from the ship that they've scoped out many times. It's not poisonous; nothing in it wants to kill them. Gon shows Killua how to cast the line of a makeshift fishing rod. Together they pull up something odd: a fish with lobster claws and a turtle shell. They've been here many times and never seen anything like it.

Gon dives down to see if there are more of them. He finds a worm with fish fins. A water skeeter with dragonfly wings. A cave that is full of tiny eggs. The small creatures swarm its mouth to ward him off; they follow him back to the surface to make sure he's gone, and to carry their comrade back into the pond. Gon is pecked by a vibrant blue kingfisher with a snake's tail for good measure.

"You know what these are, right?" Killua asks him.

Gon does. He wonders who their King will be. He wishes them luck. Surviving here isn't easy.


	10. Intimacy x and x Codependence - Part 9: Commitment | And Beyond (1 September 2005 - 3052)

The wedding is held in Kakin Port City. Neither Gon nor Killua have ever been there. They both want to see it. They have nowhere else to go: Mito hasn't yet said that Gon is welcome to come home; Killua is eloping, and as he sees it the whole point of eloping is to go somewhere exotic. 

That way neither of them has to admit that they have too many scars attached to the other places they've been together.

The city gleams like Yorknew. There are just as many enormous buildings; there are more neon lights on them and they are closer together. Here and there there are signs Gon can't read. Neither can Killua. The crowds are thick, and sometimes they are gathered in a single place, to listen to someone talk over a loudspeaker. Some people don't like King Fugetsu. Other people like her and declare the people who don't traitors. Some are wearing the same sash Halkenburg wore in his school photos, except that it is pink, and they shout LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE at the end of speeches.

The street food is delicious. Gon's never had better beef skewers in his life. The shrimp dumplings he has down by the harbor are the best thing he's ever eaten until he tries Sun-bin's grandmother's.

Sun-bin pulls up beside them in a limousine that puts the Nostrade family's Coles Choices to shame. The inside has the same panelwork with gold-overlaid enamel as the nicest suites on the Black Whale. Gon wants to touch everything. Killua knows exactly what kind of car it is and asks Sun-bin about all the "specs" and says his family owned this model ten years ago.

"I bet this one's fancier," protests Gon.

"Thanks," Sun-bin laughs, "Good luck with this guy, kid. Hope you make bank."

The driver calls Killua something that Gon learns means 'emperor's daughter', the kind a bureaucrat might marry to improve his political situation, only to beggar himself catering to her high class tastes.

Gon knows that Killua isn't too good to eat 200 jenny spaghetti and sleep on the ground. 

They have Mito flown in from Whale Island on a chartered airship. They buy her a dress that would cost her a year's wages, and have it tailored to her proportions on the flight over by a seamstress on board. Mito is made desperately uncomfortable by all of it; she doesn't know if she is to make small talk with the maids or the concierge or the private chef or if she is to ignore them. The banquet hall they've chosen for the ceremony itself, in a five-star hotel overlooking the water, with its own private garden, would cost her a lifetime of earnings to rent for the day. She feels shabby and out of place, even though with her new outfit and haircut and makeup she is mistaken for any other wealthy lady present until she speaks.

The Cha-R invite her to their table. Sun-bin's heard that she likes wine. The sommelier here is world class. Red or white? East or west? Do they have vineyards on Whale Island? What is her favourite vintage?

Mito hasn't tried more than ten brands in her entire life. She drinks the same red for every festival. She doesn't understand what the tattoos mean or why so many people have them. She calls a very tall, elegant woman in a kimono "madam" and is startled out of her skin when that person speaks with a young man's voice.

Bisky rescues her. She knows Bisky; Bisky carried Gon's letter to Whale Island. They had a long, frank discussion well into the night that exhausted Mito's supply of white and rosé for the month.

Bisky whisks her away to explain, to Mito's horror, that the other guests include not just Hunters, but dignitaries, assassins, mafia, and a dowager _queen_. They all know that she doesn't know who they are, though, so she needn't worry. Just give Bisky the sign and she'll come to her aid.

Mito has the most questions about the talking octopus.

"I thought Gon's mother would be more big," she overhears a very small man say to the person in the kimono, who then flexes, "Maybe not tall. But big."

"That's not his biological mother," the person in the kimono informs him. "He's adopted. _I'm_ not over how much Kil looks like dad. Like dad with a haircut from the last three decades, anyway. It'll give Ill a heart attack."

Mito holds back her tears until she sees Gon. At 18 years old, he looks much more like the man he will be than the boy he was. She has missed everything in between. 

When they last hugged he came up to her chest. Gon is half a head taller than Mito now.

"I'm sorry about grandma," Gon tells her. He apologies because he's decided to come home, at least for a little while, to visit her grave.

That's fine. He and Killua can stay in the guest room. Mito has kept his things.

She is so overwhelmed by everything else that it does not occur to Mito to ask where Killua's parents are until she sees the family register, and sees that she will be the only signatory to it aside from the couple themselves.

Gon takes ribbing from Leorio for being out among the guests before the ceremony; Gon supposes he knew he wasn't supposed to do that, but he doesn't really care. He knows they have ushers to make sure everyone is seated. He didn't want to wait to see everyone.

Gon had been daunted by the formidable task of organizing an event somewhere this nice and so full of rich people, but he'd been ready to tackle it for Killua. Until Killua had boggled, asked him who in the world plans their own wedding, and hired a ruthlessly efficient young man with hair even fancier than Killua's who'd inquired as to what traditions, styles, and colours they wanted, then handled absolutely everything else.

It's all very tasteful. Unlike any wedding Gon has attended before, nobody just got off the dock in their work boots.

Red is the wedding colour in Kakin. So Gon's tie and waistcoat are red; so are Killua's, though Killua's tuxedo is white, and this means something because Killua insisted on it and when Kalluto sees this he mouths 'Oh, _Kil_ ,' under his breath.

Killua walks without sound. As Gon waits for him at the end of the aisle there is silence.

Killua's eyes are so, so blue. Gon wishes he could show Killua how blue they are.

They clasp hands and offer them to the officiant, who wraps them both in red silk, again and again. This is what the rings will symbolize. They are declared to be bound together for life. Declared to be forever joined. To be, "One flesh, one breath, one word."

What word is that? Gon still doesn't know. 'Husbands' is the word the rest of the world will use now.

Killua pecks him on the lips sneakily while they're exchanging rings. It isn't supposed to be part of the ceremony. Gon catches his head and kisses him back full-mouthed until someone whistles.

Gon and Killua Freecss change into white ties and tailcoats for the reception. Sun-bin is surprised to see roast pig as the first course. Killua tells him that it's meaningful to him and Gon; Gon tells him that he caught the pig the day he and Killua first met. Sun-bin spits a little wine back into his glass. Feitan laughs really hard.

Feitan is dressed in a kind of outfit Gon has never seen before. It makes Gon think of Kurapika's old tunic, though it looks nothing like it. Between it and the way he talks he makes a lot of people uncomfortable, which he seems to enjoy. Kalluto looks stunning. His hair is as long as Illumi's. It is cut straighter. The sleeves of his kimono are shorter than they were.

Bisky has gone all-out with both jewelry and petticoats. She sparkles as brightly as Pariston. Ikalgo looks dapper in his custom tux. Gon notes with chagrin that Zushi is taller than he is, and Zushi has a handkerchief ready for Wing whenever speeches are made. Shoot and Palm still have two of the dogs with them. 

Oito attended the ceremony only; Gon had never met her and had no idea what she looked like. Fugetsu and Kacho send a card. As does the new head of the Nostrade family. 

Leorio mists up during the toast he makes to them but he does not cry.

Alone together in their hotel suite at last, Killua informs Gon that he is collecting on his promise. Gon will do one thing, anything, that he asks.

Killua tells Gon about his sister. 

That his parents have kept her locked up for years. That he despises them for it. When Gon asks if this is because she is dangerous, Killua scoffs.

"You know how easy it would've been to make her safe for everybody? I told you what her conditions were. She can't ask anybody else when she's in the middle of making requests. So get the butler she's making the requests to move to Kakin or something for the rest of their lives before she's up to four. Bam. Problem solved."

Gon wonders why they didn't do that.

"I'll tell you why." Killua's eyes are dark again. "They didn't want to lose a weapon in their arsenal. What if someone figured out a way to use her power on command? They'd waste their daughter's whole life for that chance."

Killua didn't need to make him promise anything - Gon would've done this if he'd but asked.

"Do you understand what I'm asking of you? Really, truly? My parents won't let her go. I'm not getting their permission this time. These are the most ruthless killers on the planet. Their network stretches to every corner of every continent. We'll be hunted for the rest of our lives."

Gon understands.

"Good. I want to set her free. As free as I was on the Dark Continent."

Yes, Gon understands.

They spend their first night together as a married couple the same way they will many other nights to come: discussing strategy. What they should do, what they are willing to do, and to whom. The butlers are brought into their line of work as children, largely, and do not have the choice to leave. If possible, Killua doesn't want them dead. Gon has Killua's permission to use lethal force with any Zoldyck who stands in his way.

"Why?"

"Because they'll kill _you_."

Killua returns to Kukuroo Mountain alone, with his gaze downcast and chin held high, every inch the prodigal yet defiant son who knows what he's done wrong and doesn't regret it. On his way up the path, past the Testing Gates, he pats Mike's head.

Killua kneels in the reception hall for his interrogation. Kikyou is livid: how dare he, how could he wed without his family's permission - to that wild animal from the backcountry, of all things! Is he trying to make the family into a laughingstock? Is he trying to put his grandfather into an early grave? He's lucky his older brothers are out on jobs, they would surely give him a piece of their minds.

Silva is more forgiving. Privately, he tells Killua that he understands. That so will the rest of the family, in time. That he's heard about what happened on the Black Whale and that Gon could be a great asset to the family.

Tendrils of _in_ -cloaked nen glide from Killua's fingers while he endures his reprimand. Into the floor, into the wires beneath it. Through them into the alarm systems. The locked doors that require passcodes. 

Gon goes over the gate under cover of dark. Mike greets him as a welcome friend. The butlers aren't any more difficult to avoid than the Hunters or the Kakin bodyguards were aboard the Black Whale, and the mountain has a lot more open terrain than the ship. He burrows through the rock with a _shu_ -reinforced shovel within minutes to where the tunnels come closest to the surface.

The cameras have gone dark and the passageways are open.

Gon tells Alluka that he is her new brother. That Killua sent him. That they are going to leave together. When asked, he gives her one of his fingernails.

Gon, carrying Alluka, has just made it out through the hole he has created when one of the butlers notices that their systems are down.

Killua uses the distraction of this message being conveyed to his mother to render her unconscious with a single blow. He sprints past his stunned father at Godspeed and vanishes into the woods. The chase he'll lead his father on should leave Gon and Alluka enough time to escape.

Silva can guess what Killua has done. Killua is not Silva's target.

Killua called his father's profession a waiting game. The cultivation of a single opportunity. The execution of a single perfect strike. Silva's ability reflects this. He is on home terrain; he has mastered a stealth of movement and _zetsu_ that are decades beyond what Killua can bring to bear.

Gon has weathered blows from beasts the size of buildings. From nen users as powerful as Bisky. He has stood up under and pushed back against the weight of ten thousand people. 

Had his _ken_ not been fully raised Silva's attack would have ripped Gon in half and flung the pieces into the valley below. As it is it knocks the breath and the strength out of his body, cracks his spine, sends him flying, and when he hits a tree and falls he cannot get back up again.

Alluka is unconscious in his arms. Killua told him that Silva would consider her the greater danger.

Silva is old enough and wary enough to anticipate Killua's counterattack. He does not, plainly, predict that Killua will go for his heart. He ducks not quite far enough or fast enough, and Killua's clawed fingertips burst through his left shoulder.

"So that's how it is," says Silva, as he breaks Killua's arm.

There is nothing Gon can do. Killua breaks free; Killua is slightly faster. He moves one bright, blurred half-step ahead of his father. Killua thinks faster, further ahead; Silva is more experienced and dogs him for every movement. Silva finds him wherever he hides. Silva shrugs off Killua's blows. He knows the limits of son's nen; Killua was chosen as heir for his talent, his brilliance, not his raw power. The first blow Silva lands will be the last one.

"You know what you've done, don't you, Kil." Silva phrases it like a statement. "You know what I'm going to have to do to you."

"What are you doing to do to me, old man?" Killua asks him. "Break my bones? Starve me? Poison me? Do you think you could make it hurt?" 

Silva's scowl deepens. "You know I can do worse than that."

"Oh, I know." Killua's grin is without humour, through gritted teeth. "Do you really want me to talk about all the things you've had done to me? In front of my husband? Are you going to have Illumi stick another needle inside me? Or something else?"

Killua is baiting his father into a mistake. Gon can't tell if it's working or not.

"You will help me train the new Zoldyck."

That very nearly knocks Killua off his guard. "I'm not afraid of you," Killua declares, though he should be. Though he dodges or deflects with static every one of Silva's attacks, Killua will run out of aura before his father does. Gon can tell what Killua is planning: to bait an opening, to expose a weakness, to outmaneuver him for the briefest moment to seize the advantage of Killua's own speed and cunning. 

It won't work. Silva is too cagey and has fought too many battles against opponents far craftier than two teenagers, however strong they might be. Gon is going to watch Silva break Killua in another way from which he can never be put back together again.

And it terrifies him. And he is helpless. And he hates this, hates it worse than anything else in the world and in the darkness of night in the thick of the forest none of them see how black his aura becomes.

Gon growls. "Show-"

Killua hears him. Killua kites around his father back toward Gon's fallen form.

Silva follows. 

"Me-"

Killua walks in a circle. Rhythm echo is a child's game to Silva. He knows where his son will be. This is a feint: a ploy to make him think that Gon will be a soft target. Or that they are setting up a pincer trap where Killua will be the one to strike.

Silva has correctly deduced that Gon is the real threat. He can withstand his son's electricity; when he lands his _ken_ is balanced to Gon's side.

"-Thunder," whispers Killua, and the whole of the sky on their side of the mountain is as violet-grey as dawn.

Gon gives Killua all the aura he has and Killua pours every drop of it into the arc of lightning that flows from his palm into his father's burning flesh. It sears through Silva's _ken_ and causes more than pain: where Gon would simply have smashed Silva with it, Killua directs it through Silva's nerves to his brain and spine and heart for maximum damage.

Silva topples to the grass between the two of them. Killua kneels to check: "Still alive," he confirms.

"Do you want him to be?" Gon asks.

Killua nods. "That's our one taboo. He'll know I could've broken it, and didn't. Might save our lives someday."

Gon sees the wisdom in that.

"Besides," adds Killua, while he watches the last of the current course over his hand and snap from his fingers into the air, "I already know what he can do to children. I want to see how he stacks up against somebody as strong as he is, who knows he's coming."

Yes, Gon understands this very well: next time, Killua wants to do it himself.

Killua heaves Gon onto his back, picks up his sister one-armed, and leaves home for the last time.

When she wakes, Kikyou wants to order the butlers after them. Zeno overrules this: he states, rightly, that Killua is no longer a child, and wrongly, that Killua will kill any servants sent after him. It would be a pointless waste.

Gon and Killua have set up a safehouse near the Association headquarters. They stay there alone. They will not let any of their friends risk their lives to protect them.

This is, after all, a trap.

They know who is coming and that he will have no trouble with any security the Association provides, nen or mundane. 

Illumi slips past a freshly healed Gon unseen as well, who he has been instructed not to kill. A gesture of gratitude from Kikyou for sparing her husband. She will pay Killua the same courtesy. He enters the room where Killua is dozing beside his sister. Careless, but Kil must be exhausted after his fight with father. His aura is pitifully weak.

Illumi immobilizes Killua from the neck down with a single needle. Just as he has Gon, near the entrance.

He leans over his brother; strands of silky hair brush against Killua's skin. This wakes him. Illumi strokes his face to calm him down. "Ssh, shh. You're coming home, Kil. That's all. Mother wasn't done talking to you. If you're very good, Gon can come too."

Illumi's opposite hand rises of its own accord. As if it were held aloft by strings. Illumi tries to pull it back, but finds the strings run through every part of his body.

His errant hand removes the needle from Killua.

Killua sits up. "Nanika, wake up."

Nanika obeys. "'Kay."

Illumi knows it's harmless, it's in the middle of making requests. It hasn't finished; he's been watching. 

Killua returns Illumi's gesture: he touches his brother's face. "Nanika, wake Gon."

"'Kay."

Why can't Illumi move? He knows Killua is a Transmuter, they've known that since he was a child, his Manipulation skill can't be more than a fraction of what Illumi's is. 

Illumi's other needle has been dispelled; Gon sits next to the thing that has possessed Alluka.

"Clever, clever, Killua." Illumi is as intelligent as the rest of the family. He has now figured out that Killua is not using Manipulation; he sees now more than ever his father and grandfather's wisdom in passing him over as heir. The finely tuned control of nen and its intricate deployment to use Transmutation in this way defies imagination. "Waste of a wish, though."

"Nanika, don't grant any more wishes-"

Illumi's brother is too pure for this world. "Oh. Now you're defenseless."

"-Except my commands."

"'Kay."

Illumi begins to laugh. Clever, clever Killua has tricked them all. Kept a secret his whole life, even though confessing it - or _using_ it - would have spared him from all that he hated. Much too pure. "What will you do, Kil? It has to hear you. Someone could attack you before you speak. You'll have to hide away with it for the rest of your life."

"And Gon’s."

“‘Kay.”

Illumi looks to Gon for the first time. Gon is staring back at him. He hasn't blinked.

"Do you remember what I told you, the first time we met?" Gon asks.

Illumi does.

"Nanika," Gon says, while Illumi opens his mouth to scream, "Never let Illumi see Killua again."

"'Kay."

Nanika has not been commanded to kill Illumi, so it does not. It does blind him. It does so in such a way that his sight can never be restored, via nen healing or otherwise, because that was part of the command, too. It removes his eyes and the nerves that lead to them and the parts of his brain that correspond to sight. This is what Gon and Killua anticipated. This is what they agreed upon.

They failed to anticipate that as a creature from the Dark Continent, Nanika would consider other possibilities. If Illumi were to be consumed by a Chimera Ant and his memories and personality transferred to a being that _could_ see, he could see Killua again. This is counter to Gon's command: Nanika removes all of those parts of Illumi, too. What remains is an eyeless, thoughtless doll capable of responding only to primitive sensations.

They leave the thing that was Illumi for one of the butlers to collect. They tuck Alluka back into bed and wish her goodnight; she will be very tired.

Gon takes Killua to a different room, where he has the privacy to cry, at last. When Killua wails this time he does so against Gon's shoulder.

The threat Killua has sent back to his family is received and understood. Nanika is their deterrent, and she is and always will be a whisper away. They buy Alluka her own cell phone, one with a pearl white and blue case and pink bangles. Gon and Killua can reach Nanika from anywhere in the known world.

Which they travel together, openly. The Zoldycks can have no way of knowing what conditions their son has set if they attack. All they know is what their own human experiments turned into as a result of the backlash. 

Killua takes Alluka meet a good friend of his. A nen doctor who will help her develop her wasted muscles after years of confinement. Who can make it so that she never grows hair on her face again and that when she eats good, nourishing food she flourishes into a lovely young woman. 

Leorio also tells Killua, alone, that Alluka's aura is already substantially depleted. That healing and dispelling nen cause the worst damage - Killua's noticed himself that Nanika has the most difficulty with these. After treating incurable diseases or curing powerful curses, Leorio's Ai-infected specimens live a fraction of their expected lifespans. Killua, who the Ai must see as its mate, must take particular care with his instructions.

Killua won't allow Nanika to be used again save in the direst emergencies. Gon agrees.

They spend years showing Alluka the things they've seen, instead. They buy her whatever she likes. They take her to Heaven's Arena. To the Southernpiece auction. To see Kite's work in a rainforest preserve. To see Mito and Whale Island. When they plan to bring her to Kakin Port City, Sun-bin suggests they not. At least for a little while. 

For all her plans to institute democracy, King Fugetsu is deeply unpopular. Halkenburg's faction do not want a constitutional monarchy, or a monarchy of any kind. They want rule by the people, for the people, by any means necessary. True royalists see her as weak: details of the Succession have long since been leaked by its survivors, who know that Fugetsu did not defeat her siblings, but rather ran away the most effectively while her elders fought and the youngest were butchered. Her failure to take control of these popular uprisings is damning.

Fugetsu’s siblings might be dead, but they live on in their followers, and their ideologies: only Benjamin had the full support of the military, and its generals are the first to turn against her. Halkenburg and Taithon's last stand and last words have been inflamed into legend - the last act of the true Kings of Kakin was to break the shackles set by their father. Taithon's works may have expressed unconditional love for the sisterhood of mankind, yes, but following her enlightenment during the Succession, also expounded on the need for personal responsibility. Her message is clear: the shiftless ruling class of Kakin are parasites sucking on its greater body.

With Camilla gone and everyone having forgotten them, the outcaste turns to the only group who will accept them. They, too, are the people of Kakin. Though they are the children of the stronger sister, who knew what must be done to break the chains, and was willing to act. While Taithon's followers preach, and Halkenburg's march in the streets, Camilla's riot. Fugetsu calls on the military to restore order, which does not respond.

This rapidly boils over into a coup. Fugetsu and one of her infant sons escape with their lives through the use of her nen ability - the unrest in New Kakin is of an entirely different nature.

The New Continent is as resource-rich as promised. A steady stream of supplies arrives from the mainland and the people there live in plenty. 

This has not escaped the notice of the original V5, nor has the fact that Kakin cannot currently defend its new territory. Humanitarian and scientific missions from those nations to 'assist the settlers' and 'discover more of the world' disappear into the highlands and around the coasts and in their wake they leave mines and oil rigs.

With a meagre detachment of troops and a single warship, Prince Kacho can do nothing about them. 

Worse yet, rumors swirl that another Prince has somehow survived the Succession. Who has an equal claim to the throne.

The day Gon, Killua, and Alluka arrive for a weekend vacation at Bisneyland, the news reports say that General Balsamico has announced that he has restored order. That peace has returned to Kakin. 

"Trading one dictator for another," someone behind them in the line to Buccaneers of the Baltic says, "That's that part of the world for you."

The day they leave the word WAR is in all caps in the title and ticker of every news channel and pops up at the corner of every un-ad-blocked screen. 

Some political commentators suggest that someone has armed the People's movement. Perhaps East Gorteau. Or even the Association. Others point out that there are thousands of caches left over from the last civil war, and what's more, it would be a violation of the rights of legitimate arms manufacturers based in the other V5 to block them from selling to Kakinese customers. Yorbia and Padokea have sent substantial humanitarian and military aid to the capital city in support of the legitimate government.

For Gon and Killua, this is well-timed. Travel and security are expensive. To live forever on the road might be romantic for them, but it's no life for Alluka. They need to take contracts to remain in good standing with the Association, besides. In times of unrest there are contracts by the thousands.

Gon and Killua agree that they no longer trust the Hunter Association to treat them fairly, and that the Hunter Association likely no longer trusts them either. They do not want to do business with Cheadle or Mizai without a solid legal framework between them. They establish their own private security firm, which the Association may subcontract if it so chooses, which is not beholden to its Articles. This entity is distinct from the relationship Gon and Killua Freecss have with the Association as individual Professional Hunters. As the latter, they take on innocuous fetch quests to retain their standing. As the former, they deploy their real skills. For the Association. For the V6. For anyone they decide to allow to hire them.

There is nothing in the Articles that forbids Hunters from forming their own companies or having other livelihoods, after all.

The Kakin War is the bread and butter of the early days of Freecss Security. Their employers find them reliable and versatile. They are effective in mass combat situations and subtle enough to leave no traces when desired. For the exceptional level of skill and professionalism they offer, they demand complete autonomy from their employer in return. They will hear all relevant details before they accept any contract. If anything is discovered to have been omitted, even part-way through its execution, it is void. They will decide exactly how the job is to be done. This goes for all sides and all parties. Before long their reputation precedes them. The contracts they are offered are direct, and lucrative.

Gon and Killua decide which to take together. If they can't come to an agreement, the contract is declined. At times this is simple; at others, they debate its merits for hours. After all the damage wrought by and lives lost to Benjamin and Camilla's actions, Killua relents that yes, on very rare, very special occasions, they can accept hit jobs. Only in the defense of innocent lives. Killua declares that he will handle any and all of them; Gon rejects this and this argument lasts days. It _does_ matter to Killua: it matters to Gon, and they are one.

Killua shows him the ropes and Gon cuts his teeth as a hitman on the remainder of Tserriednich's servants who aided and abetted his murders without duress. In return, Gon teaches Killua how to trail an illicit arms shipment through the jungles at the heart of the Azian continent for weeks unseen. How to survive off the land. How to chart a reliable map for delivery to their employers in addition to the ordnance markers they've left behind.

The first time Gon makes a spark with his fingers, it smarts. He doesn’t like it. He notices that Killua sometimes charges his attacks to make them stronger.

Gon doesn't really understand why everyone is fighting. Fugetsu won the Succession - shouldn't that satisfy the Royalists? She was going to give them the vote - shouldn't that satisfy the People? 

"Gullible dipshits and sore losers," Sun-bin explains while they oversee Cha-R handlers load a refugee family's goods onto an unmarked fishing vessel. Sun-bin's glad that Gon's doing so well for himself; business is harder for him these days, but people still need their medicine, and he's operating one of the only services that'll get people who don't have diplomatic ties to the other V6 out of the country anymore. Gon's never seen refugees with so many luxury goods; Sun-bin explains that as a business, he doesn't get tax dollars like the official ships from Padokea and Yorbia, so he needs to get paid, and these are the people who can pay him. 

"The Royalists backed the wrong horse. They'd already decided who they wanted to win. Sunk all their costs and connections with him. You and I both know that no matter how much you talk somebody up before a match, the second you step inside the arena, it's anybody's game." As for the People of Kakin, well, "Suckers and the desperate and the people who always make good use of them. This has all been tried before, eh? East Gorteau kicked off under exactly the same pipe dream. I guarantee you whoever they put in charge - and for all that fancy talk about sisterhood, somebody _will_ be in charge - will be just as bad as Balsamico or Diego."

Gon wonders if they really don't know that. Travel through wartime Kakin is restricted to most foreigners; all Gon need do is flash his Hunter license. Kakin is still part of the V6, after all. He finds a woman in a pink sash who is wandering through the crowds of hopeful, anxious people at the docks, speaking to some of them about how they should stay - join their brothers and sisters. She is very small and has an accent like Feitan's.

She recognizes him as a foreigner right away. This is fine, she says. Their movement will be worldwide. She asks him where he's from, and when he tells her Whale Island, she's heard of it. Gon should, in her opinion, want to join them. Whale Island has been exploited for decades: loosely attached to but not autonomous from the mainland, the catch it sells to mainland ships is resold for five times that amount to wholesalers on the continent, and ten times that much in mainland grocery stores or dinner plates. Whale Islanders languish under poverty because they don't get anything close to the value of their labour. The "services" Whale Island receives in return - the mail, the yearly visit from a doctor - are a pittance of what that is worth. The stranglehold the mainland has over training, education, and supplies means that no other industries are ever developed.

"We get tourists," Gon tells her.

Her solution to this problem is that Whale Island rise up with the rest of the world's underclass, when the war in Kakin is won. After they overthrow the Royalists who prop up the oppressive old system, cast out the Yorbian and Padokean imperialists from the harbour, rip out the criminal gangs that have festered in their largest cities, they'll ban the footsoldiers of corrupt late-progressivism like the Hunter Association.

First, Gon tells her about fish. He likes talking about fish, they're one of his favourite subjects. About how fish don't really "belong" to anyone and how the species that feed the mainland aren't coastal, they're migratory, and they're followed by huge mainland ships that cross international boundaries, which use Whale Island as a port to resupply. Coastal fish caught by the Islanders are a tiny percentage of their haul. If the Islanders priced them too high, they just wouldn't buy them. Whale Island gets by, though. If she's really worried about fishing villages, she should stop eating the pine cone shrimp sticks she bought. Overfishing to feed Kakin's growing appetite for those has all but wiped out traditional shrimp diving towns in the islands around the Mitene Union - it's something he and Kite talk about all the time. 

Then Gon tells her with a smile that he is a Hunter, that his husband is from Padokea, that Fugetsu is a very nice person, that the Cha-R are his friends, and that if someone dragged Whale Island into a war he would never forgive them.

Gon nearly sets off a panicked stampede on the docks before he remembers to use _zetsu_.

Regardless of how Gon himself might feel about them, the People have popular support, and the backing of several non-V6 nations. Following the Civil War, and the war against Jappon before that, the Royal Kakinese military is not what it used to be. General Balsamico's forces are pushed back to the coasts, and must eventually flee to all the way to New Kakin.

There Balsamico plays his trump card to undermine the legitimacy of Fugetsu and Kacho's rule and ultimately dethrone them. The dowager queen Oito was pregnant during the Succession: impartial physicians have confirmed that she must have conceived before her arrival in New Kakin. They have another sibling who was never defeated, one with equal claim. A better claim, as he did not make the choice to run from the battle between his siblings. Balsamico's forces are sufficient to drive V6 speculators from the continent, and to pronounce that the indigineous peoples they discovered are of Kakin origin. Tributaries of the old empire and its explorers.

The King of New Kakin was born blind and fair-haired. Doctors will recover his sight later in life; the contacts lenses he wears are to filter out the sunlight to compensate for his albinism.

Padokea annexes Kakin Port City as a temporary measure in order to protect its citizens and its internationally vital deep water harbour from the ravages of war. The People's Republic of Kakin is sternly cautioned that any attempts to seize it would be considered an act of war against Padokea and the rest of its allies. It would lose its seat at the V6 security council. An agreement is signed for its eventual relinquishment, instead, and in return the V6 acknowledges New Kakin as a PRK territory.

The Port City is the last place in Kakin to have Fugetsu, who lives in exile in Yorknew with her sister, on its flag. Sun-bin will stay there. In the end, he is a patriot. The Port City is and always will be Kakin. Kakin has the longest history of the V6; it has endured worse, and someday this will be history, too.

By the end of the war Freecss Security is well-known and well-regarded in all of the right circles. They receive choice contracts, many of which would otherwise have gone to the Zoldycks.

Which is by design. Gon and Killua know they can't fight the Zoldycks directly without exploiting Alluka, which they will not do. There would be no winner in a direct confrontation.

So they will starve them out.

Where the Zoldycks are a vast organization with scores of butlers, the Freecss run light and lean. Where the Zoldycks are deeply tradition-bound and highly specialized, the Freecss are infinitely adaptable. Illumi had to kill to speak through another person's voice or control their actions; Killua can do so harmlessly and tracelessly. Where the Zoldycks are esoteric and standoffish amongst those they consider their lessers, Killua Freecss is a well-dressed, affable young man who hosts social gatherings for V6 officials. Gon Freecss shows up to joint operations with the V6's own special forces of nen users in athletic wear and chats enthusiastically with them about hunting, fishing, and the season's Heaven's Arena champions.

Besides, there is plenty to find distasteful about the Zoldycks: how resolutely unapologetic they are about their profession being one of violence and murder necessitates that their use be subcontracted and redacted from official documents, which is tedious. The Freecss are a legitimate security contractor with a wide portfolio of consultation opportunities who can be contacted openly like any other business. The Zoldycks in their isolation cling to outdated worldviews; while discussing the removal of the leader of a popular uprising in Western Mitene, a V6 secretary overhears Milluki refer to Alluka as his "brother" and is so disgusted that she must leave the room to calm down. The Freecss are a handsome, open-minded gay couple.

To make matters worse, Illumi can no longer work, for obvious reasons. Kalluto refuses to return, and now need only insinuate that he will act out in the same way Killua did to win his own freedom. Kikyou is too old to bear another child - they waited too long. She is forced to take contracts to keep up with expenses. They are forced to reduce their staff. They are forced to name Milluki the heir.

For the most part, things are very good for Gon and Killua. Their friends and family see it, and are glad for them. Gon overhears Killua giving Zushi relationship advice after a bad breakup. Gon and Killua's marriage is so perfect - how could his have gone so badly? She was everything to him.

This makes Killua wistful. "Back when I was a stupid kid, I thought Gon was everything to me, too. Like he was some kind of fairytale prince or perfect shining knight who came to rescue me from my tower."

"Wasn't he?"

"Knights in shining armour don't exist, Zushi. This princess got herself out, and ran into a huntsman who happened to help her along the way. One who needed her as much as she needed him. One with his own problems. One who's as human as you or me. Just like your girlfriend."

Gon can hear the affection in Killua's voice. It makes him happy. Killua is wrong, though he will never see it. There is a knight in Killua's story, and though his armour is tarnished and he once carried the wrong banner, he is as brave and noble and steadfast as any other. He fights justly and walks upright in spite of the arrows in his back, some of which Gon himself put there. His kindness is hard won and his joy is beautiful in the way that only intricate, fragile things can be.

Gon and Killua do fight sometimes, like any other couple, about the same things any other couple does. What Killua thinks is a reasonable amount of jenny to spend on dinner or an outfit or a night of gambling is an amount that makes Gon's eyes pop out of his head. Killua tells Gon that he sweats pocket change like this because he was raised by women; Gon agrees that yes, it is because he was raised by women, and like a good wife Gon is going to put his name on all of their bank accounts and cut Killua an allowance.

Other things that they later take great joy in are developments they never expected: they are sought out by a young man who says that he is Ging's son. Ging himself is long gone on an expedition to the western half of the Dark Continent. The boy has the look and a formidable talent in nen. It does not take long for Gon and Killua to agree to adopt him. A decade later Killua brings home another young boy with the same look; this one Gon and Killua do not discuss. They do not discuss the girl Killua brings home several years after that, whose hair stays silver after infancy.

The battles their children are raised to fight are different from the ones they did. Kakin is stable; the rise of drug trafficking from Meteor City has made Yorbia unstable. A village harbouring Chimera Ants in the NGL is wiped out over old grudges; several of the surviving Chimera Ant captains are found to have mated with human women and they and their offspring have to be hunted down. 

New Hunters rise to power within the Association. The massacre on the Black Whale is ancient history. What did they expect, licensing a Zoldyck? Gon has clearly reformed Killua, at any rate - love will do that to a man. The Freecss' relationship with the Hunters is gradually repaired.

Leorio founds an NGO of elite, nen-using medical professionals who travel the world to help the sick and suffering free of charge. He and Machi see one another casually, whenever their schedules allow. He never marries. Zushi is killed at age 28 in a Heaven's Arena bout for Floor Master. Bisky becomes the Grandmaster of Shingen-ryu. She shows her true form only to female students who rise above the level of black belt. Then they can make their own choices.

In twenty years Bisky's build will become quite fashionable in combined martial arts and ex-fit circles. Her students’ reactions shift from horror to enthusiasm. In spite of this Bisky will always find it difficult to shake the revulsion with which she was raised.

Melody finds the remaining pieces of the Dark Sonata and retires as Nostrade matriarch to spend the rest of her days teaching music to children. Kalluto takes over for Feitan in his old age as Head of the Spider and the Phantom Troupe prospers like never before.

Legends arise among the indigenous peoples of New Kakin of a Red-Eyed Devil who rules over the vast and largely unexplored interior of the content, one who leads Christ Himself in chains.

As Leorio cautioned them she would, Alluka dies prematurely in middle age. She steadfastly refused to try to have the Ai removed - Nanika was her constant companion when she had no one else. Killua mourns her deeply while Gon considers how much time they have left before the Zoldycks find out and move in to kill them all. This is the Freecss' most closely guarded secret.

Until the day, two years after the first child of Ging's second son is born, that Killua's daughter tells them her baby nephew's eyes have turned black and that he can make things for her if she plays with him.

Killua patiently explains the Ais. The nature of aura parasitism and the rules of wishes and commands. He and Gon have another long discussion. They establish the rules that will save their family: wishes and requests are eliminated as soon as possible. Nanika will be ordered to obey all of their commands. These commands are only to be used in matters of life or death. Nothing else.

Gon and Killua live long lives for a normal person; very short ones for nen users of their caliber. At over one-hundred, Bisky is still in her prime. In their sixties, Gon and Killua begin to weaken and they both know why.

Killua never really recovers from the final fight he has with his father and brother; he refuses to use Nanika on wounds that will heal on their own. Milluki's sons have no lingering affection for him. Or for Gon, who Killua finds poisoned and near death in a hotel room in Yorknew with something Killua's blood cannot cure.

They decide not to use Nanika's ability together. This is good enough. This was good enough. 

Privately, Killua admits to their adult children that there were so many times he would have left Gon, if he could have. But that he is glad he didn't. Gon is the love of his life. Gon kept his promises. Without Gon, he never would have met them.

They don't understand.

They do know the moment that Gon dies, because it is the same moment Killua does. Beside him, holding his hand.

To share aura is to share the source of life. This was the price of the nen contract that bound them together. They are human and cannot survive alone.

"You are," is the last thing Gon says to Killua, "The better part of me."

In time the lessons Gon and Killua taught them are lost to the Freecss. Not all generations into the future have the same respect for Nanika's personhood; others are forced to utilize it to stay on the same level of poison and pain immunity, of discipline and sacrifice, that the Zoldycks bring to bear.

In time the Zoldycks discover ways around Nanika's abilities, as more about the Dark Continent becomes known, as humans always do. The feud between the two assassin clans escalates into a war in the shadows; one that is ruthless and bloody.

It is Killua's great-great grandnephew Talluko Zoldyck who makes peace between the families at last, by marrying Kon Freecss. The Freecss become a branch family of the Zoldycks. 

With full command of Nanika's abilities, the Zoldyck dynasty over the underworld lasts a thousand years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mad props to my beta readers on twit for all of the encouragement; I never would have had this much fun writing the Troupe without you, fern, or Kurapika without your Oitopika-spiration, al, or without you, jenn, for aiding and abetting this humble purveyor of promble.


	11. Mercy x and x Justice

Gon does not say anything. He does not slam his fists against the concrete; he does not snarl at the boy behind him. He masters his rage sufficiently to hear the words that Killua speaks.

For all Gon longs to beat Pitou away from the unknown girl and tear her limb from limb for what she did to Kite, those words ring true: there is something wrong about this. Pitou has not raised her nen, even when Gon closed the distance between them. If the girl were an object of torture or a prisoner, surely Pitou would have discarded her in order to face the threat they pose. 

"She is important to someone who is important to me," Pitou answers Killua, and Killua nods his assent. His belief that she is telling them the truth.

Gon doesn't want to listen. He doesn't want to hear it. He wants his _fight_ , he wants her to be _punished_ , he wants her to feel how Kite felt, how _he_ felt. His shaking fists are balled and his fingernails bite them bloody.

"Gon," says Killua softly, "She's agreed. To help Kite. So long as we let her heal that girl."

This tastes so bitter that Gon can hardly swallow. That this monster will be allowed to help her friend, after what she did to Gon's - what if Killua is doing this out of fear? For Gon's safety, like he went back on his word for Ikalgo? Isn't she their enemy? Aren't they here to kill her?

Gon looks back over his shoulder. In Killua's eyes there is nothing save calmness and sorrow.

No. As much as it might sting, as much as it might feel like betrayal and that he is taking her side, Killua is doing what Gon asked of him. His sight is unclouded by anger; Killua has simply given voice to reason.

They are here to free Kite. If Gon had killed Pitou now, he might have failed at what was most important.

It hurts. It burns. It feels like swallowing needles, just like Mito's promise. But there is no one here to hurt aside from a stranger, the one person who can help him, and his best friend. 

"Okay," is all Gon can choke out. His voice cracks.

Killua's brows knit. "How long do you need?"

Pitou untenses a fraction; she is still on her guard. Her gaze is still fixed on Gon. "To heal her completely? Four hours."

"And to heal her enough to survive?" Killua asks. "The rest can wait."

"One hour."

Killua looks to Gon. Gon nods. 

"You have one hour," Killua tells her, "Then we go to Peijing. Together."

"And you'll heal Kite," Gon adds with a growl, "Promise me."

Pitou's flinch is deeply satisfying. "I promise."

That settled, on this one count Gon will not relent: "I'm staying here to make sure."

Killua sees the wisdom in this. He sees that Gon has retained enough composure to act rationally: to know that if he fights her, Kite is the one who will suffer for it. If Killua has judged wrongly, or if she tries to join the others, or aid the king, Gon will ensure that at the very least, they are warned. 

Killua swallows his own worry. "Good idea. I'm sure the other teams could use my help."

"Killua," says Gon as Killua turns to leave, "Thank you."

In the moment before he does, Gon sees Killua's trembling lower lip turn upward in profile. "Don't mention it."

Though Gon did not ask for it like Killua wanted, Killua knows that he has helped him. Killua's heart is lighter than it has been in weeks. He has kept his friend's anguish from consuming him. He is solid and whole.

His other friends need him now. Killua finds Meleoron; they join the battle against Youpi and prevent it from reaching its worst excesses. Killua tracks pieces of Pouf for Morel; re-awakens Palm's humanity with a confession of admiration for the courage she must have for executing her mission alone. Killua knows what it's like to work alone, one misstep from death. 

Palm will seek out Ikalgo and aid him in the basement, as he planned to do for her; Knuckle will lead the injured to safety. Killua will tell Gon what has happened.

As such most of the extermination team is still standing when Youpi and Pouf feel their king is in grave distress.

Pitou feels it too. 

The king's command has placed her in an impossible situation. She has long since discerned their plan of action: the bombardment from above to throw them into disarray, then to separate the Royal Guards from their liege - to divide and conquer. They have taken the king somewhere far away and in his supreme confidence he has fallen into the trap they have laid for him. Yet his final order was to save the life of this girl and not his own.

So she has done the only thing she could to survive, to fulfill her king's request, and to protect him. She has lied.

Komugi's gravest injuries were healed long ago. 

She will be forever grateful to the boy who sits across from her with a look of such ferocious intensity. She will always remember that when faced with a choice to win the battle or to act with compassion, he chose the latter. They want her to heal someone close to them, she understood that much; they could have had that from her if they'd broken all of her bones and rendered her helpless.

Nothing inside Pitou is broken now. Not even the arm she would have cracked in two as proof of her sincerity had Gon's wrath not cooled.

She is still their enemy. They are here to kill her king. That fact remains incontrovertible.

The distraction she requires comes in the form of Killua, faster than the others, returning to check on Gon and to tell him that the other Royal Guards have quit the battle.

In the end the king was right about them: they are weak but their humanity is worthy of respect.

So she will be swift and merciful.

Given the difference in their speed, and that he is seated while Pitou is poised to pounce, the half-glance Gon spares behind him when Killua calls his name is enough. Enough for Pitou to close the distance between them in the first half of her leap, while the rest of her momentum carries her onward toward the fair-haired boy who looks on, stricken with horror.

The swipe of her claws as she passed Gon was meant to take his head off cleanly. He has drilled with Bisky enough to fortify the place where he is attacked with _ken_ without thinking; the difference in their strengths in nen is such that Pitou's claws still cut through. 

But not fully. She rips out his throat - severs his veins and arteries and windpipe - instead. No matter. Gon will be dead in seconds. She moves on to the next threat.

This was a mistake.

As an Enhancer, through instinct born from desperation, Gon exercises the same control over his body that Netero displayed when his leg was severed: he uses the shredded remains of his skin and muscles to staunch the flow of blood. To close the hole in his trachea as best he can so that some air flows to his lungs. 

On his knees, alone, clutching his throat while blood oozes over his fingers and soaks his shirt, Gon's mind reels. His breath comes in wheezing gasps.

No, not alone. The girl. The girl is here. The girl is alive.

_She lied._

Killua.

Killua was here. Pitou attacked him. They're gone. Killua might need help.

Gon rises unsteadily to his feet and follows them out across the ramparts. Into the corridors of the palace, where it is dark.

_She was never going to help Kite._

No, this is a mistake. Something went wrong. Gon just needs to find out what happened. They let her heal the girl, so she'll heal Kite next. She promised.

_And you knew it. You let this happen. This is your fault._

Killua moves soundlessly. Pitou stalks in perfect _zetsu_. Both strike faster than the eye can follow and use the shadows to their advantage. Their battle is unheard and unseen.

Gon follows the trail of red blood.

_Kite will never be free now._

No, Kite will be free. Gon just needs to help Killua.

_Kite will never be free because of you._

Gon spots pale severed fingers. They end in claws.

Those are Pitou's. They're Pitou's. They're _Pitou's_.

_You did this._

No he didn't. No he didn't. Killua stopped him from doing what he should have done. Killua trusted her. He told Killua to think clearly and he _didn't_ \- he didn't.

It's growing harder and harder to see. Gon stumbles over his own bloody feet. He grips the wall to force himself back upright. 

He tracks Killua by scent. By sweat, fear, and tears.

_You can't help him._

Yes he can. Yes he can. He can help. He will get there in time and help. Someone will help. Someone is still here, aren't they?

"H-h..elp." The first cry is breathless. No one would have heard it.

Gon pours what little strength he has left into the next to form words through the ruin of his throat: "Help."

The voice that comes out is hardly a squeak, one that sounds years younger than Gon is.

"Help him."

_This is your fault too. He's here because of you. This had nothing to do with him._

Killua will be okay. Killua would never lose to someone like her; Killua would run and hide. He's so good at those things. He'll run and hide and go for help.

Gon lurches forward. He falls as often as he takes a step. It grows harder and harder to get back up again. He can no longer see.

_You did this._

Killua's scent leads him to Killua’s soft, downy hair, his face, his cheeks, his neck that ends mid-way to his shoulders and there is nothing else.

Gon kneels beside Killua's head. 

He takes his hand away from his own throat.

_No, she did._

She did. She lied. She lied. She _lied_ she hurt Kite she lied she killed Killua she lied Killua is dead he's gone he's gone forever he's dead because of ~~him~~ her he's DEAD she KILLED HIM she KILLED HIM she lied liar liar liar LIAR.

LIAR.

Gon no longer cares if this is the end. 

Let this be the end.

He makes his nen contract at the moment he would have died. It is compounded, amplified, and made permanent with the power of a death curse.

Already fled toward the wall on her way to the king's side, Pitou is the first to sense that terrible aura. She circles back; this new power could pose a threat to even the king upon his return.

It is huge and sunken-eyed and radiates hatred, but with its throat wound and blood-soaked tank top it is unmistakably the boy. 

Pitou stalks him. Until his back is turned, and she has another chance to strike. She will finish what she started. She will sever his spine, this time.

Pitou's _zetsu_ is flawless. She is perfectly concealed; perfectly silent.

The blue blood that oozes from the one wound Killua managed to give her patters to the floor with the sound of an avalanche, to Gon.

He seizes her mid-air by the throat.

"Liar." Gon speaks with a much older voice. One that rasps as a death rattle.

He rips her arms off first.

"Liar." He rips her legs off with each accusation. He blasts her torso with Rock until there is a hole in it. He punches her head until it caves in.

Terpischora has no limbs by which to hold Pitou aloft. 

"Gon!"

Gon registers the voice as Palm's. But something has changed. He looks to her and sees that she has the aura of an ant. She tells him that she is still a friend and that she is here to help him.

Gon will not make the same mistake twice.

They are all liars and they all failed. Killua spared Ikalgo; Killua risked his life to help Ikalgo; Ikalgo let Killua die. Shoot and Knuckle and Morel went to the NGL in his place and they said that they would save Kite and they didn't. Liars.

Pressed flat against the palace wall, holding his breath for dear life, Meleoron bears witness to Gon's rampage helplessly. This is not the boy the rest of the team seemed to see: this is the monster Meleoron saw, who calmly told him that he would destroy him without mercy.

When what remains of Pouf and Youpi arrive to play their game with the king, Gon plucks them from the air and crushes them in his fists.

A different part of Pouf alights on Meruem's shoulder to warn him clear of the palace. 

"Are you saying that he is stronger than I am?" Meruem asks with good humour.

"O-of course not, my liege. Simply that you require more time to recover from your wounds."

Meruem knows that His Guards have been hiding something from Him. He desires to know what it is. It has slain one of His true brothers, one to which He gave of His own body; He cannot stand idly by while this human disrupts the Selection, either.

"If he is stronger than I am, then he deserves to be King, does he not?"

Nevertheless, the sheer force of the baleful aura that seeps from the palace walls takes Meruem aback. He is not surprised to discover the slaughter within. Nor the blood-drenched creature at its epicentre awash with malice, who makes no distinction between human or ant.

"Your majesty," Pouf pleads, "Caution is the better part of--"

The creature spots them atop the wall. It brings the section on which they stand down in a single blast of its power.

Meruem has no choice but to fight.

On its own, Gon's nen contract would have been sufficient to give him the strength to harm the king. Magnified by death, it has made him more than Meruem's equal. Where Meruem shrugged off Netero's blows, Gon's stun and wound him. Where Netero waited for Meruem's openings, Gon makes his own. Gon breaks Mereum's wings first.

Meruem dodges one of Gon's fists to find Himself seized by the tail by the other. Swung aloft and smashed with red-black energy that hurls Him through stone and concrete, through the parapet and into the tower, which topples around Him.

For a time He is unable to move. 

In the corner of His blurred vision, He sees the split halves of a gungi board. He sees the scattered pieces around it, black and white.

He sees the body of a girl, crushed by the rubble that surrounds Him. 

Komugi.

Meruem rises. He knows that this moment was bought for him with Pouf's life. That the creature is now coming for Him. That it will not relent after He is dead. That its power comes at the cost of what binds human and ant; that both are gathered outside in their millions.

He knows that there is wrongness inside of Him and that his own life will soon end. He now knows His purpose.

He knows He cannot defeat that which knows only despair.

Meruem brushes strands of hair from Komugi's cold forehead.

All the power that was given to Him, by His people, by His brothers, Meruem gives to his own nen contract; one that He will seal with His own life. 

Meruem dies peacefully with Komugi's head in His lap.

In so doing, He binds the creature to this place forever.

The distraction of the king’s battle has allowed Meleoron to escape at last. Outside the palace walls he finds that Gon can no longer follow. The crowds disperse amidst wet, strangled howls of rage.

What to do with Gon becomes a hot topic among the Hunters during the Chairman Election. Some contend that Gon is too dangerous to approach; he no longer knows friend from foe. Some suggest a nen exorcist, but no such attempts ever succeed. Knov refuses to go back there. 

Some demand that Ging take responsibility, that he rectify this before his journey to the Dark Continent. 

"Not my problem," Ging contends, "He did it to himself."

Zeno returns to retrieve his grandson's body and is never seen again.

Kurapika leaves on the Black Whale. Leorio never forgives him for it.

In the end the Association decides to leave it be. The curse will run its course; if it doesn't, this is the safest option. The extermination was a success.

The ruins of the palace are left to fallow. As the government of East Gorteau crumbles there are more important things to concern oneself with than the remains of a building out in the middle of nowhere. Those who do approach it do not return.

Within a generation legends arise amongst urban explorers that the old palace ruins are home to a monster. Blurred photographs from broken cameras still in contact with the cloud appear on the dark web and their authenticity is hotly debated. It becomes the subject of horror tales; the kind that are pasted over and over on message boards. Aspiring young Ruin Hunters take the Exam in hopes of seeking out the truth one day.

Thirty years after the Chimera Ant Incident one of them posts to QNet to claim that she has been inside the palace. 

There was no monster, she says. Just a boy, who clutched a child's skull and wept.


	12. Loss x and x Grief

Gon does not hear anything. The roar of adrenaline and nen and his own heartbeat deafens him to the world around him the moment he lays eyes on Pitou. He has dreamed of her and hated her for months; that she is savagely mutilating a human girl the same way she did Kite overwhelms his last shred of restraint.

Killua and Pitou speak in pitched voices to which Gon does not listen while he charges Rock. 

Pitou is nothing more than an enemy who will lie to him. Killua does not care about Kite and never has.

Killua knows that if he knocks Gon unconscious this time he will never be forgiven. He has yet to grasp the situation in its entirety either; all he knows is that something is deeply wrong.

Pitou judges that her sole option to fulfill the king's command is to dodge Gon's attack. To defend herself would require that she dismiss Doctor Blythe and in those precious seconds Komugi's heart could fail. Should she bear the brunt of it without _ken_ she could die, leaving Komugi to the mercy of her attackers.

The moment Gon releases Rock, Pitou takes Komugi in her arms and leaps clear.

At least, it should have been. As they set foot in the tower, Killua noticed that Gon's aura was far beyond the level he had seen it before - stronger than it had been against Razor, or even Morel when the latter invited him to think of him as Kite's captor. It cracks the concrete beneath him to pieces, just as it did the asphalt then; the surge of power Gon unleashes explodes with a force that cannot be contained within the tower alone. It bursts from the exit and from the high windows; rubble rains down from the ceiling.

Killua and Pitou are both hurled into the wall with that same energy. The former has nen to protect himself. The latter does not.

Still, Killua and Pitou are both faster to react than Gon, who must recover. Killua is first to see the gleam in Pitou's eyes turn murderous.

Pitou's skin is scored and she is badly bruised and there is no doubt that her joints are torn and her bones fractured. But she is a Royal Guard. Her body is durable enough to survive a fall of a thousand meters. 

Komugi is dead.

Pitou has failed. The king's sentence will no doubt be death. All that is left for her is to eliminate the intruders.

She pounces with the intent to take Gon's head off; she is rammed in the side at the speed of a bullet. So quickly that, even with the differences in their size and strength, Killua manages to knock her off her course.

Her claws bite bright, sparking scores in the floor. She falls together with Killua in tangle of limbs and electricity.

They are a blur to Gon. He has no means of discerning where they will be and how they will move. If he strikes one he will likely hit the other; the back of Killua's head is already bleeding, and distantly, Gon recognizes that this was from his own attack, not Pitou's.

Killua realizes Gon's predicament, and his own. At Godspeed, he is faster than Pitou, but only barely; should she close the distance between them she will rip Gon to pieces. His own attacks scatter harmlessly along the surface of her aura. 

Killua reroutes the signals from his brain to react automatically to Pitou - to dodge and defend - so that he can reserve his conscious mind for strategy. 

Killua looks to Gon. Does Gon understand? All Killua can see in Gon's dull, dark eyes is rage.

There. Pitou's next swipe across his face will be glancing. He'll survive it. He can bear it for the opportunity to step back a stride. To give Gon an opening. 

Pitou slices open Killua's cheek. Gon's Scissors slice her hand off at the wrist.

And so it goes. To an onlooker, it is fast and brutal. To the combatants, it is an agonizing eternity of a dozen moves to set up a single strike. One which may or may not succeed.

Gon and Killua take Pitou apart piece by piece. 

Every time Pitou extends herself for a killing move, Killua is one step faster and Gon punishes her for it. Every time Pitou tries to switch targets, Killua's body interposes itself between them.

Killua's aura is bled dry; Gon grimly estimates the force with which he can hit Pitou that Killua will survive, should it come to that.

It doesn't. Killua finds an opening to tackle Pitou and pull her off balance on her remaining leg. He ducks, and Gon takes her head off.

Gon stops it with his boot as it rolls across the floor. He picks it up, and smashes it against the wall until it comes apart in his fist.

Then he goes to where Killua kneels beside Pitou's corpse, bathed in sweat and shaking from exhaustion. Killua will be out for the rest of the battle. Gon should carry him somewhere. He wanted to have this fight alone, but in the end he now knows he would have lost it. "I'm-"

Something hits Gon with a force that turns the world upside down. It makes his vision go black and his ears ring and when his sight and his hearing return it hurts so much he wants to vomit. He is in a heap at the base of the wall. There are cracks where he hit it. His belly has bloody gouges in the center.

Killua and Pitou stand above him. There is something very wrong with this. They look like they are embracing but Pitou's arm disappears into Killua's stomach and Killua's fingers are sunk deep into her chest. Pitou has no head. Pitou's claws stick out through Killua's back.

Killua sits down heavily. 

Pitou comes with him, and she strains to escape his grasp. Killua wraps his legs around her. He grips her collar bone with one clawed hand. He cuts her heart out with the other.

Killua sets the heart on the floor. He holds onto the body until it slackens. 

"Gon, look." He sounds happy. There is dark oily blood all over his teeth. "That was her nen after death. Kite should be free."

Gon tries to crawl to him. Gon's limbs are heavy and they don't listen to him very well.

Killua pulls Pitou's arm out with a wince, pushes the intestines that come out with it back inside, and meets him halfway. He crawls too; drags himself with his arms. Gon can see through the hole in his back that Killua's spine no longer connects together.

Killua can't sit upright and Gon can't lift him. Killua rests his head on Gon's bare thighs. His skin is cold. He convulses; Gon smells urine.

"Ugh, lame. I know. I can't help it. Just part of dying." Killua seems to want to talk. He talks until he doesn't make sense. "Sorry... I said I wouldn't... selfish... I didn't run away... ...I helped you, right?"

Killua's eyes are unfocused; Gon nods anyway. "Yeah."

Killua curls up around him like a blanket. "You're so warm," he says.

Gon lays a hand on Killua's head.

"Killua?" he says, after a few seconds of silence.

"Killua?" he says, when he can no longer feel Killua's breath on his legs. 

"Killua?" he says, alone in the tower.

"Killua. Killua Killua Killua _Killua_." He makes tight fists in Killua's shirt, hunched over the body of his friend.

Gon cries very quietly for a very long time.

The sounds of their fight draw Meleoron to them. He takes in the bodies of the ant and the girl. They are obviously dead; even from across the room where Gon sits Meleoron can tell that Killua's wounds are not survivable. Gon's are.

Meleoron seeks out the other members of the extermination team for aid. The news casts a pall over their battles and puts them on the defensive. Knuckle is no longer as reckless; Morel is not as easily lured. By the time Meleoron links up with Knov, who has returned to take the injured Shoot to safety, and guides him to the tower, Gon is unconscious. Palm regains her emotions at the sight of them.

The rest of the battle ends as it inevitably would. Pouf and Youpi leave to aid their king and are poisoned. They return to find the wreckage of the tower. Meruem sits by Komugi's side until he dies, committing their last game to memory.

Gon awakens in fits and starts on the other side of the portal. He does not want to be moved until it's over. His comrades greet him with a pat or a touch or a broken smile. When Morel comes through he cradles something wrapped in Knuckle's jacket, something that seems much too small to be what it is until Gon sees Killua's shoes.

Gon is excused from the first rounds of the Chairman Election while he recovers in the hospital. An old man comes to see him with a man who Gon recognizes as Killua's father by the shape of his eyes, though he has never seen him before. They ask him what happened. They take him away and he is glad to go.

The Zoldycks wear black. Gon wears one of Killua's suits. They burn Killua and put him in a jar that they put with many others. 

Killua's mother is inconsolable. She tells his father that it is his fault, all of it, and that she will never forgive him, yet remains in his embrace. Illumi weeps strangely. He remains expressionless; he pauses from time to time to remove the tears from his face.

Killua's grandfather, too, wipes away a few tears. His little brother is somber but stoic.

On the way back Morel calls Gon to tell him that Kite is alive. That all they'd had was his body; that he'd been with Colt all along. He sounds overjoyed.

When they meet at the Election hall, Gon tells Ging that he got his best friend killed for nothing.

Ging is flustered; he does not know what to say. He makes no move to comfort his sobbing child and is roundly booed for it. What happened to Kite was Kite's own fault for dragging a couple of kids along on a dangerous mission - what happened to this 'Killua', well, "He didn't die for nothing."

Ging gives Gon's shoulders a shake. Gon blinks. 

"He died for _you_ ," Ging tells him. "Don't you dare waste your life being miserable about it."

Someone throws a cup at Ging's head.

Someone else shouts 'Father of the year, folks!' and Leorio gently extracts Gon to the bathroom before the stands devolve into a brawl. He holds Gon for a while. Then Leorio marches back out and Gon hears wild cheers.

Ging, with a black and purple bruise on his chin, agrees to have a talk with Gon when the Election is over.

Gon spends most of the Election beside Leorio. Sometimes Leorio gets up to talk. Gon doesn't listen. Bisky hugs him and says some things he doesn't really hear either. Something about a place to stay, for a while. If he needs it. Leorio makes the same offer.

Gon doesn't want anything. He just wants Killua.

He wants Killua to see the World Tree and he cries sometimes while Ging is talking to him there. Ging gives his back a pat.

Ging doesn't know what else to do with his son, so he takes him to the Dark Continent. Not aboard the Black Whale - on the back of his dragon, with Pariston. From time to time Ging catches Gon gazing down at the tiny world passing below in wonder.

The first Dark Continent dragonhawk that tries to bite them in half pitches them all into the sea miles from their rendezvous point. Ging is not an Enhancer; Gon makes himself useful by building a fire for them before Ging and Pariston die of hypothermia on the shore. Gon warns them about the landpreys that are about to devour them, too.

All three get violently ill from the first thing they try to eat. They nearly starve to death. They get lost for months. Ging learns the hard way to trust Gon's nose; Ging punches Gon out of a kneeshark's stomach the first time he goes fishing and is swallowed whole; Pariston makes the wrong decision about every aspect of their survival so reliably that choosing the opposite guides them in the right direction better than any compass. 

The Black Whale never arrives. In its place, months later than its scheduled arrival, is a different ship piloted by Morel. What happened to the Black Whale sounds very complicated and Gon doesn't really care. Leorio is here and that's enough. He makes Gon a lot less sick.

Gon is still sad a lot. From time to time he sees something cool and looks back over his shoulder to tell Killua. He rolls over in the night and wakes because Killua isn't there. There are beetles he would have loved to dig out of the ground with Killua; there are cliffs up which Gon has no one to race.

There are mountains that gleam like gems and in the north the sky reflects them amidst flocks of flying fish larger than blimps.

The expeditions are cut short. They suffer too many losses, to wild animals and magical beasts, yes, but especially to poison and disease. Ging gripes bitterly about this; Ging gripes harder when he learns that they don't plan to send another. With the loss of the Black Whale and so many Hunters, they haven't discovered enough articles of value in the Dark Continent to justify the cost.

Gon will remember his time spent there as a series of surreal landscapes and a lot of people dying.

When he returns to the known world Gon is sixteen and has no idea what he wants to do with the rest of his life. Article 1 of the Hunter Bylaws requires that all Hunters be on the hunt for something - he supposes that that used to be Ging. 

Mito has no advice to offer him. She wishes he'd stay home with her. Gon doesn't want to do that; he's never wanted to. The weight of all things unsaid between them is no easier to carry now than it was when he was a child. She does not ask why he goes to sit by the pond in the middle of the night, and he does not tell her.

Gon takes Leorio up on his offer. Leorio is a newly minted physician and is busier than Gon will ever be. Still, he takes time to teach Gon all about life in the city. To show him museums and nightclubs. To explain all about different types of alcohol and that Gon really shouldn't smoke, though Leorio does when his ward gets too stressful. To kiss his second person ever his own age.

Gon enjoys his time there, but gets restless staying in one place. So he leaves the city to take Bisky up on her offer, too. 

She is halfway around the world in the ruins of a civilization so ancient that it doesn't have a name, prying gems out of the tombs of kings. Gon joins her and together they puzzle their way around traps of every description and fight the man-headed, six-legged doglike magical beasts that guard temple graves.

Next they head deep into the jungles of Kakin to find legendary silver jade. Kakin is at war; Gon isn't really sure why. Bisky explains that they lost their heads of state on the Black Whale and that the V6 has interceded to form a temporary government and that people are very angry about this. Sometimes they have to creep past rebel encampments hiding from bombardment beneath the cover of trees.

The old Kakinese script is very beautiful. Bisky can read some of it; Netero could read a lot. Some of it is carved into stones for posterity. Much is on wood and paper and the jungle will soon erase it forever.

They find the jade in the teeth of a skeleton at the center of a palace full of gold-flaked lacquer. It is hunched over a stringed instrument and before it is a scroll with music neither of them can read.

Bisky isn't interested. Gon is curious and can't get it out of his mind. They agree to part ways for a time. He takes the scroll to Melody in Yorknew.

It is one of the pieces of the Dark Sonata. The second of three. 

It contains clues to the location of the third, so he and Melody set out to the far, far south to find the other. Further south than the Mitene Union, so far south that it is cold rather than warm. There are birds that look like seals and whales that look like unicorns. Melody soothes the ice bears they encounter with her music so that Gon doesn't have to hurt them. Gon scales glaciers with picks and Melody on his back.

The last piece of the Dark Sonata is carved into a bone flute. They find it inside a cave with skin drums and no skeletons. Melody tries her own flute; the cave has excellent acoustics. 

"Someone played this here," Melody suggests, and the two of them ponder that all the way back.

At the research centre where he and Melody try to find answers about the tribes that once lived in the far south, Gon runs into Lin. Lin tells him that Kite has run into a lot of trouble with the Hunter Association trying to protect endangered species in the former NGL, now that the Association has turned it into an Exam battleground.

Gon and Melody part ways. Gon finds Kite where he last lost him. They find comradeship in their shared unease - while Spinner and Stick marvel at how pristine nature has been left here, Gon and Kite spend nights together around the campfire, too on edge to sleep. They share stories about their travels. About Ging - Kite, from Ging's youth, Gon, from Ging's time in the Dark Continent. Neither can discern whether or not Ging and Pariston are dating.

They talk about how they still find it hard to speak to Chimera Ants, even the ones they know are friendly. Even though Kite knows that he is himself one.

They gather enough evidence of the NGL's unique ecosystem to force the V6 to intervene: the Hunter Association may only hold its Exams in part of the NGL. The rest is to be kept as a nature preserve.

Gon travels with Kite and the amateur Hunters for several years. They sail on Morel's ship together to stop Japponese ships from hunting the unicorn whales. They lobby for a limit on the number of climbers on the World Tree per year, and what kind of spikes they're allowed to use. They grow very close, and it is Gon who Kite calls in the middle of the night to confess that he loathes his new body and would do anything to change it.

They go to see Leorio together. Leorio owns a very nice apartment. Gon sees Kurapika on the broad leather sofa there; he doesn't recognize him at first. Kurapika's hair has greyed and he is wearing dark glasses. Leorio has to guide him everywhere. Leorio tells Gon privately over drinks in a lounge on the 108th floor of a skyscraper that Kurapika has no eyes and won't live much longer.

Kite likes his new body much better; Gon travels with Leorio and Kurapika to Lukso to lay the eyes to rest. Then he leaves the two of them in peace.

At times Gon wishes that that was what revenge had cost him, instead. When those times are very bad he calls Kite, or Bisky, or Melody, or Leorio and stays with them for a while.

Blood tells, but so does history. Ging contacts Gon three times in ten years. Every year, whenever he is able, Gon returns to the Zoldyck estate to pay his respects.

The testing gate opens for him easily. Mike greets him with a headbutt and a low whine. Kalluto offers him an umbrella when it rains. 

Gon is thirty when a young man who is eighteen seeks him out. The youth claims to be Ging's son and Gon does see the resemblance. He wants to find Ging, too. He wants to be a Hunter. 

They talk for a while before Gon tells him that he will never lie to him. 

"So," Gon says, "Ask your mother when she last went to Whale Island."

Gon does not hear from his son for many years after that.

He does hear from Melody. The southern glacier tribes used their piece of the Dark Sonata in a healing ritual. Gon is as astonished as she was; she explains that the curse is not the intent of the piece. It is the backlash of a fearsomely powerful nen vow.

The vow that those who play it make is that they will play it perfectly. That if so played they have the power to heal any ailment.

Gon is worldly enough to know that it must have restrictions. It does: that each piece can only be played once by one person, ever in their lifetimes. That if it is not perfect it will strike them dead and curse all who hear it. That it must be heard in person to have any effect. That if all three pieces are played back to back by the same person its power will be amplified unimaginably.

Melody is an expert musician, so Gon assumes she will have no trouble with it. Melody tells him that they are all for different instruments. That there is more than just the notes to consider: there is tempo and phrasing and volume and lots of other things that sound like a foreign language to him. It will take a lifetime of research. Gon wishes her luck.

Gon does find things that he wants to do. 

His career as a Hunter has made him wealthy. He buys uninhabited islands. Some, he preserves for posterity and refuses to sell for development, no matter how much he is offered. Others, those that have already been developed in the past, he sets up as sanctuaries for injured and orphaned animals. He hires staff and works there part of the year himself. Knuckle volunteers his own time, too.

Gon will never be as famous or rich as Ging, who has never abandoned his search for the stars. Gon has seen every city on every continent by the time he turns forty and the new Hunters who have heard of him greet him with a smile.

There are still mountains to climb with Shoot and ocean depths to explore with Morel. Artifacts to discover with Bisky and to appraise with Zepile. 

There are other people Gon loves very deeply; some briefly, and passionately, others for many years. Some will not speak to him when they go their separate ways, others remain fast friends with him for life. Kite becomes one of the latter.

One year, Gon notices that Kikyou doesn't join them at the shrine. Zeno has long since stopped coming, and Silva very suddenly; Gon asks about neither. He knows the answer from the way the butlers address Kalluto as head of the family.

Kalluto invites Gon inside for tea. He lets Feitan take the children. "Mother isn't well," he tells Gon. "When she passes, you should take Kil. I know he'd rather be with you than with us."

Whale Islanders don't keep shrines. They scatter ashes across the sea.

"Well, don't do that until I'm gone, if you don't mind. I'd like to visit him myself sometimes."

Gon agrees to, someday. They while away the afternoon talking about marriage and family. Gon has no plans for either. Kalluto plans to keep a looser grip on his than his parents did him; his time with the Troupe taught him a great deal. 

The next time he returns to Whale Island, Gon finds the houses half-empty. Gon has heard in the news that fish stocks have been depleted in the waters that surround it and that many of the mainland ships have changed course to follow the few schools that remain. He didn't know it was this bad; Mito never told him it was this bad in her letters.

Mito has sold her plot of land to a resort developer. She'll use the proceeds to open up a wine bar on the mainland, she tells him. She's always wanted to, and they're very trendy these days.

They pack up the old house together. 

As he covers Ging's photograph in bubble wrap, Gon tells Mito how much it hurt when she lied to him about his parents.

Mito opens a bottle of wine. They share it. She tells Gon how much it hurt to be abandoned by the boy she loved, and that she couldn't bear the thought of Gon leaving her, too. That she was very young, and that she did a lot of things she regrets now that hurt the people she loved out of foolishness. 

Gon admits that he did, too. 

Gon escorts her to the mainland. When they part ways they write to one another as much as they ever did.

Gon finds the resort developer and outbids her to buy Whale Island.

When the last of the inhabitants leave, he turns it into another nature preserve. There is only one house left inhabited, part of the year: Gon's own, that he built with his own hands. He learns to sail and he learns to grow a garden and the island supplies him with the rest.

Gon returns there after a trip to Yorknew to see Melody and Leorio. Leorio is the Chairman of the Association. He has changed the Bylaws so that nen users may use nen healing on those without the ability if it will save their lives without facing any repercussions or sanctions, even if it will awaken nen in them.

Leorio is helping Melody to organize her symphony. Patients with terminal illnesses from all over the world - the kind incurable even with nen - are invited to attend. Cautioned strongly about what the consequences might be in said invitation, of course, but they've already received replies in the thousands. 

They extend one to Gon, too, which Gon declines. He wouldn't dream of taking a seat away from someone who needs it. He will watch the livestream, the same as anyone else.

Melody laughs: that is exactly what Leorio said.

Gon awakens one morning shortly after in his Whale Island home to find a woman sitting at his bedside. She is dressed in pink and white and wears children's hair bangles though there is as much grey in her hair as there is in Gon's.

Gon makes her breakfast. She explains, haltingly, that she is Killua's sister. Gon chuckles and tells her he already knew: her eyes remind him of a cat's just the same.

Alluka explains Nanika, and that her family locked her away because of it. That starved of affection Nanika withered away and died inside of her. That before it did, it offered her one wish of her own. That she wished to be with her big brother.

Gon sees that she is tired. That she isn't used to moving around. He has so much to tell her; she should rest first. He asks her if, later, she would like to listen to a symphony.

Gon makes a cup of coffee and a cup of hot chocolate. He heads up to the balcony and sits there to take in the pond and the forest and the ocean. He sets the hot chocolate down opposite him. The coffee he sips. 

"Hey, Killua,” says Gon, eyes on the white clouds, the black waves, and the blue, blue sky, “Hope you enjoyed the side trips."


	13. Hope x and x Regret

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for waiting everybody, the last chapter is finally finished. Strongly recommend that you read Chapter 5 of Killua's side first (https://archiveofourown.org/works/21664942/chapters/69352305), as they're intended to be read together. This is the conclusion. Thank you for reading!

Gon does not say too much, or too little. He does not say _enough_ \- does not confess how he truly feels and so take that first step toward the true and irrevocable knowing of another - but he does speak. He retains control over his emotions sufficient to be talked down; he does not allow himself to be talked over. He remembers where he is, and why, and that these are his enemies.

This single-minded focus leads him, alone, to its inevitable conclusion: he does not notice Killua leave him at the Palace; he does not care that Killua so readily agrees not to join him in Peijing. Gon does not want him there.

In the end, though, when the sum of his worst unspoken fears are realized, he is grateful for Killua’s presence. He has no anger left. The final blow is struck out of mercy - for what remains of Pitou, for what remains of himself.

The first thing Gon does when he wakes again is cry.

The joy of seeing his companions of the invasion alive, of reuniting with Leorio, stems the tide until he finds himself face-to-face with his father. His journey has concluded and he has nothing to show for himself. Ging is everything, yet nothing, he expected him to be; Ging tells him that that was not what was important. When they part, Gon knows he will never see his father again.

Gon did not fail Ging. He failed Kite. He failed Killua. 

Ging doesn't blame him. Kite doesn't blame him. Killua does.

Gon apologizes to Killua when prompted to do so. He does not follow Ging's instructions - he does not explain how he will avoid making the same mistake in the future - because he does not know the answer. He did speak rashly, he did lash out in pain, he did say them out of anger, but when he said those words, he meant them.

When they part it comes as no surprise. Gon has known that Killua would leave him since he awoke in his hospital room and Killua wasn’t there.

Killua had always intended to leave him, hadn't he? When he discovered what he wanted to do with his life. Killua said so. Gon isn't sure if he ever truly believed it; at least, that all Killua wants to do is continue to travel, albeit for the sake of someone else who isn't Gon, doesn't surprise him either.

Alluka says she'll give Killua back someday. Gon considers what that means.

The messages he receives from his former companions are at first frequent. They promised to keep in touch and so they do: Gon serves as a good an outlet as any for Leorio to vent his endless gripes regarding Association politics between his rounds; Gon is the first to receive a picture of the first baby Leorio ever delivers. An email is received from Knov and Morel jointly one night, miscapitalized and with more periods in its ellipses than Gon believes to be strictly required, that calls him “a good kid…. a damn good kid…,” the morning after which Knov apologizes for their unseemly state of intoxication.

There is a pause before texts from Killua are opened, while Gon untenses his shoulders. There are many things Killua could say that Gon deserves to hear. There are things he doesn’t: the same sensation as counting one step too few down the stairs in the dark churns in his gut at the possibility that Killua could reconsider. 

Killua speaks safely in images. Of sights seen, of sweets purchased on impulse, of Alluka softly smiling. Gon responds in kind.

In the end, Gon was glad to talk with his father. Gon was glad for the journey. He's glad to travel with Kite and his companions again, however briefly. He does delight in the newness and the exploration and the company of other comrades. He ignores the wrongness he feels until it can no longer be denied. Without nen, Ging is simply an interesting man who likes to explore.

For all Gon tells himself that his nen just needs time to recover, that it will be fine, Gon also knows it won't be. He admits it much earlier than he would have a year ago: denial has not served him well so far. He can no longer see auras. He rolls out of his sleeping bag after the others have fallen asleep and finds a clearing in which to try to summon his _hatsu_ until morning. Nothing comes. So little nothing that it does not even exhaust him. He is a little boy standing alone in an empty field pretending he has magic.

He tries this for months.

What does it matter, though? Kite has to relearn his own nen abilities himself - herself. The amateur Hunters lack them. They don't encounter anything more dangerous than wild animals, for the most part, and when they do, they have Koala to protect them. Koala is more than willing to protect Gon, too - when they are set upon by armed poachers, one of whom knows _zetsu_ , on the road to an Azian nature preserve, Kite flanks them while Koala has the rest of their helpless entourage stand behind him and flee.

Gon hates this so much he can hardly breathe. He lingers, weaponless and defenseless, long enough to take a bullet through the calf. He has to be carried to medical aid.

Gon leaves in the night. Kite is waiting for him. They say nothing more to each other; there is nothing more to say. Kite nods; Gon embraces him - her - and Kite's head reaches the crook of his neck. He leaves a note for the others. 

That Gon still heals in less than half the time the doctor predicts is a relief.

His phone call to Ging is a long shot in the dark against the afterimage of prey; the kind of throw the athletes in the sportball games Leorio watches make following a prayer to their gods before pitching the orb heavenward as if to reach them. Gon is somewhat surprised that Ging even answers. He is not surprised that Ging tells him he got exactly what he asked for: that he has his life is itself is a miracle, and to want more would be hubris. Selfishness. He should see what he can do as he is now.

Wasn’t it Ging who said that Hunters were selfish people?

With nowhere else to go, Gon returns to Whale Island. 

It is the same as ever. He steps off the vessel that carried him to the enthusiastic cries of circling seagulls and of the Islanders offering food, lodging, wares, and services the passengers have lacked for days or weeks or months at sea. 

Gon is scarcely taller. His jacket covers the muscles he's built. He is recognized immediately and thumped on the back with vigor by a dozen of the two score of people he has known his whole life. Mito hears the clamor, shucks her gloves, and joins them. Her arms feel the same way they always did around Gon's shoulders.

That evening Mito makes him his favourite childhood dinner of pine cone shrimp spaghetti with hot sauce. Gon's had better in Yorknew. He doesn't say that; he does tell her about Yorknew, though, an abridged version of the auction and Kurapika's quest and his journey to Greed Island. He and Killua won a game of dodgeball. They met Kite and went to see the NGL together. It's just as pristine as it says on the news. 

Then the Association hired him to fight some magical creatures from the Dark Continent - that's on the news, too, along with the once-in-a-century Kakin-backed expedition and Kakin's own entry into the V6. Mito doesn't really follow politics; Gon's grandmother has opinions about it, although she's never been to Kakin, which she shares and Gon rapidly forgets. Something about the war against Jappon and 'Kakinese'.

To Mito, Gon confesses that he would have gone with Ging on the expedition had he not lost his nen. Mito is glad, because this means she gets to keep him.

Gon is not glad.

He is certainly not glad when reams of textbooks and quizbooks and notebooks arrive in the following months, care of the mainland's child welfare services. School is mandatory until the tenth grade there; on Whale Island and other outlying rural areas, this is waived to seventh. Before he left, Gon had just completed fifth.

Mito wants him to finish junior high school. The assignments are no longer fill-in-the-blanks and freeform reports about animals. The math is no longer limited to addition and subtraction. Gon finds himself glancing over his shoulder to ask Killua the answers to the very first page. 

Mito refuses to give him any answers either. It wouldn't be fair, she tells him sternly: he has to learn these things for himself. She doesn't look him in the eye when she says it, and Gon knows that she doesn't know them.

He catches her up late one night scowling over a glass of wine at a page full of triangles. Gon doesn't ask her for help again.

The geography is easier now, at least. Gon knows the capital of Padokea; before his journey, he had only the vaguest sense of where Padokea was. He's been to Yorbia's capital himself; he's been to almost every continent and to most of the largest cities, outside of Azia. 

For the sixth grade, he is expected to read whole books. None of them have pictures. They are all make believe. Mostly, they're about rich people and very boring and Gon gets by imagining Leorio as every doctor, Killua as every aristocrat, and Kurapika as every honour-bound duelist. Gon himself doesn't fit anywhere. If there are any adventures or battles they're short and glamorous and do not read like anyone who has been involved in either. Nobody talks about animals except horses. Horses are nice, Gon supposes. One book that is different is about a city where everyone is told exactly what to do. The preface tells him that this is an allegory. He texts Killua to ask what an allegory is. Apparently it is something that is about something that is actually about something else. This seems really, really stupid to Gon.

The books are tedious. The book reports are horrible. Gon doesn't see the point of repeating what the book said already. The characters aren't real, and their motivations are right on the page. The only report he gets above a C on is the one about the city. It reminded him of the Chimera Ants, so he wrote about ant colonies. His distant evaluator on the mainland tells him this is an apt metaphor for the loss of individuality; if it had been less heavy on descriptive biology it would have received an A. 

Mito is proud of his B+. Maybe Gon will even make it to high school.

For seventh grade, there is a book about a woman who takes a boat through the jungles of lower Azia. The boat and its motions and daily life on it are described; the jungle is populated with creatures at every turn and sometimes there are even sketches. The ruins of lost civilizations are as lavishly detailed as what the people on the boat ate and how they caught it. It is supposed to be a made up story, but Gon knows well before he reads her biography that the author has been there and done this. Gon wishes he were on the boat so badly it hurts.

When he comes to the part where her husband is killed by and she kills one of the native tribesmen, Gon puts the book down. Takes the first of what will become many walks along the beach, well after dark. When he returns he sleeps until noon, which Mito says isn’t like him. Later he will hear her on the phone with his correspondence teacher, complaining that the book he read contains subject material inappropriate for his age.

It takes Gon three months to finish this book report. It receives a B-.

The rest of his courses slow to a crawl. He can make no sense of the enormous figures on his worksheet, no matter how many hours he stares at them. His answers are always wrong. His science courses are no longer a simple matter of learning about the world around him: they’ve been poisoned by equations, too. Art expects him to add depth and perspective to his drawings in ways that remind him of the horrible triangles; history is a ceaseless litany of names and dates and articles of law without context that does little more for Gon than hasten his afternoon nap.

Gon finds ways to leave his papers untouched as long as possible. Mito doesn’t mind if he tidies his room. She doesn’t mind if he helps with the laundry, or with his grandmother, or fetches something for her from the shop in town, even if this task takes him an hour longer than it should have.

It takes her a month to get wise to this tactic. She joins him for a stroll into town, to give the two of them privacy, and tells him that if he doesn’t complete his schoolwork there’ll be nothing more in his future than what Whale Island has to offer. All he’ll ever be is a fishmonger or a fisherman.

Gon asks Killua if he’d make a good fisherman.

At first the chirp that heralds a message notification from Killua made his back teeth clench together and his breath quicken. Spinner showed him how to change the sound from a beep to the cry of the small-billed swans, a sound that still makes Gon happy. 

That still reminds Gon of the last image he has of Killua, happy, through a video chat after he sent the flight of swans to him and his sister, back when Killua still talked to him by any other means but text. The image of Killua’s soft blue eyes rounded with delight.

The sound now means there is something to look at besides an empty page. 

[yep. i think u’d like it]

Killua declines to say why. He declines to say where he is, or what he has been doing. When Gon inquires, he receives a photo of red-and-green ice cream with Alluka’s beaming face behind it, which Gon declares delicious.

[looks yummy]

Contact with his other friends, too, grows thinner on the ground. Preparations are made for the voyage to the Dark Continent; he learns from Leorio, now a Zodiac, that Ging has already departed. Knov and Morel will join them. Kurapika’s farewell message is curt, direct, and sent in Leorio’s presence. 

Set adrift by their masters, Knuckle and Shoot are traveling together in pursuit of their first Association Star, frequently out of service range and not at liberty to discuss their quarry with outsiders. Similarly rudderless, Palm and Ikalgo are taking contracts together, too. When Gon asks why, Ikalgo tells him that the bonds of friendship forged in battle are unbreakable. When Ikalgo asks Gon how Killua is doing, Gon sends him the picture of the ice cream cone.

[seems fine!]

That evening at supper Mito harangues him for playing around on his phone instead of doing his homework. She takes it away, and sends him back to his room until he’s finished. At midnight, Gon slips out the window and back into the woods.

Two years is nothing to the trees, the large fish in the deep waters; it is generations to the mice, the birds, and the grasses. Of these only the grandchildren of the bright black coin-fisher crows acknowledge him - a creature of legend who would travel further into the woods than any other seaside ape. The forked branch over the swamp is the same as it ever was; when Kon climbs up to curl beside him his fur is patched with grey.

Gon dreams fitfully of claws. Of stingers. Of gaping maws, and of a bloodstained patch of grass left by someone he had carried to safety in his own arms. Of the sound of his own ragged breathing, of beads of sweat that follow the curve of his throat downward while Kon devours her and Kite reprimands him sharply for looking away.

Gon returns home at dawn and sleeps until noon. 

Mito threatens to nail his window shut.

He chips away at his studies in fits and starts. He sees a spectacular sunset and wishes Killua were there; he finishes a whole page of arithmetic near the fresh scent of the sea. He stares at a diagram of the bones in the human arm and wrist and is listless for days. The roar of nen and the echoes of Genrthu’s shrill pleas for mercy haunt the corners of the old house and fade over weeks. When at last he makes his way back to his math textbook he has forgotten everything he learned.

Mito decides to show him what his life will be like if he doesn't finish his education. She takes him down with her to the dock to clean fish and shuck clams with the other women. He smiles for them; they are delighted to have him around. It is repetitive work without thought. Their rumination is lively; they broach the same topics, over and over, cyclically, without pursuit of resolution. 

Against all of Mito’s expectations, Gon enjoys this work as often as he doesn’t. It isn’t as rote as it first appears; the mound of their harvest, packed on ice, at the end of the day belies the skill involved in opening a shell swiftly, of detaching meat from scales or skin without wasting it, of knowing which parts of every kind are edible, and which are valuable. Now and then the fishermen and boys will call out to him to come with them: they tell him that if he has finally left his childhood forest, put aside his childhood dreams of Hunting, that as a man he belongs to the sea.

Mito sternly refuses. Not until he finishes his schooling.

There are still days when the cheery repetition overwhelms him as much as his math books ever did, and he can make no sense of why until in small hours of the morning when, lying sleepless, he recalls the pop of organ sacs and crunch of cartilage between his palms in the sensation of slimy sea flesh against his fingers. 

In one such fit of exhaustion Gon hears the cry of the small-billed swan. He pads to Mito’s room as he might stalk an animal and he takes his phone back. Goes the furthest he can into the woods and still have a signal. He’ll return it by morning. Mito won’t notice.

There is one message from Kite about an expedition to the cold south to track pods of unicorn whales. Unspoken in the specifics of this plan, its times and dates, is an invitation to join them. Gon has no permission and no money to leave; Gon will not be a burden again.

It is the last time Kite will ask him.

Only Killua’s texts are more than sporadic and these, too, grow fewer. Killua is in the picture for once: an upside-down face beaming beside his sister from the spiral of a triple-loop roller coaster. Gon had asked him once if he wanted to go to Bisneyland someday. Killua’d said it was a place for girls.

In the long dark of tousled sheets and silence, Gon admits that it [looks fun].

The reply of [ud like it] is too swift, and to Killua’s error Gon adds [yeah] before either thinks better of it.

Gon would like it. Would have liked it. Could have asked “why” when Killua announced they were to part; Killua’s excuse in the face of Gon’s counteroffer that he was still welcome to meet his father - that he couldn’t leave his sister when he had carried Komugi on his back at lightning speed for miles - a veneer so flimsy that that single word would have torn it to shreds. Gon doesn’t know what excuse Killua would have used had he asked to join them, instead. Asked them to wait for him. He didn’t bother to find out. 

The truth - the undeniable truth, made as stark as the shadows cast by torchlight that Gon remembers only in his dreams in these months of sleepless nights - is that it was an opening. An opening that Killua, able tactician that he is, used to flee.

Which is something Killua is very good at.

No, no - that isn’t fair. Gon knows it isn’t fair. Had known it wasn’t fair from the moment that corrosive resentment had finally worked its way up his gut, past his throat, and out of his mouth: he’d told Killua he was willing to stay and die with Kite. He’d told him on the airship, and yes he’d asked Killua to be the voice of reason, and he had been, and they were alive because of it, and Kite was alive - when Gon chose to believe that - they were all alive because Killua had and hadn’t listened to Gon. Had listened to his better judgement, not his worst. The instant they’d felt her aura they’d known the fight against Pitou was unwinnable. And in that instant, they had made the opposite decision. 

That Killua had made his decision out of strategy - that Kite stood a better chance without them, that if they survived they could come back for Kite if he escaped but if they died they could not - rather than out of love and fear, is what Gon chose to believe.

Just as he chose to believe that Kite was alive.

If Kite was alive, then that unthinking, agonized creature in Peiking was Kite; if that was Kite, then Kite was in that state in their stead; if Kite was in that state for in his stead, Gon would tear the whole world down to save him from it. 

He would have done the same for Killua.

Would Killua have done the same for him? Or would he have cautioned against it, urged reason, counseled calmness, suggested they take a step back to see both sides, no innocent bystanders can be hurt, it isn’t worth it--even though Gon was like _that_ because of _him_.

In the back of Gon’s mind there was always a voice, as insidious and unshakable as the one that told him that had he not encountered Kite, Mito never would have told him about his father, that suggests that just because he has chosen to believe something does not make it so. What if Kite can’t be saved. What if Killua made his decision out of panic; to avoid losing what he cared about. At the cost of what he didn’t.

The same Killua who broke and ran back for Ikalgo the second he was given a reason to, not knowing what he and Gon would encounter on the way forward. The same Killua who hadn’t taken his eyes off Gon since, who smelled of tears and terror - not for their enemies, but of Gon’s _mood_ , simpering and snivelling in the background about their _friendship_ , as if _that_ was what mattered, _that_ was what was at stake while a man who’d traded his _life_ for his lay mindless, tortured, _forever_ unless they won this _fight_.

They owed Kite _everything_ and the _monster_ who did this to him was _right in front of them_ and--

\--And if her nen-after-death kept Kite bound, he could never be saved. It was a lie, it was all a lie, Kite was already dead, but it was a lie they had all chosen to believe, so Gon couldn’t hold it against Killua.

Killua had only said the right words, for the wrong reasons.

And Gon had only responded in kind.

Gon is sorry. But he still doesn’t know what he would have done differently.

Gon falls asleep with his phone clasped in the hand opposite the one he uses as a pillow.

That morning he awakens to birdsong. Sea birds this time, the default ringtone: a new number, neither Killua’s nor Kite’s nor any of his other friends busy now with their own lives or sailed across the ocean. The message reads:

[hi gon! it’s alluka ^^]

The last thing Gon remembers about Alluka was the look she gave him when she promised to return Killua when she was done with him. A different look than the open affection she bears for her older brother; than the shy sweetness she offers to strangers. A knowing look; Gon recalls that her blue eyes were not as pretty nor as delicate as Killua’s. Recalls thinking that in a few years she will have mastered the tools women use to correct that discrepancy.

[hi alluka. everything ok?]

[it’s fine. i got your number from my big brother, hee] she responds, undeterred by the fact that he didn’t ask, [he’s in the shower. how is being back home? killua says your island is nice. with lots of animals!]

[it is nice. there are lots of animals]

[heeeeeey. can I ask you something???]

[sure]

There is a pause.

[did my big brother ever talk about me? before we met]

Not really. Not in as many words. For all Killua called Illumi an asshole, for all he complained that the second older brother who helped them get to the Southernpiece auction in return for payment in kind was a lazy slob who mooched off their parents, all Killua had ever said about the rest of his siblings was that he had a younger brother who dressed like a girl.

[no. why?]

There is another pause. The dots that mean a message is being typed appear and disappear several times before at last a response is sent and Gon imagines that last look cast over Killua’s shoulder. 

[I heard him call me his little brother. on the phone. to one of your hunter friends. he doesn’t know I heard him.]

Another pause. Gon considers a needless [ouch] or [wtf], but the dots appear again.

[is that how he talks about me to you?]

He could spare Killua here, or spite him. Gon sees the logic: he himself heard on his bus tour to Kukuroo Mountain that the Zoldycks have five sons; if this fact is well known, explaining that they have four sons and a daughter - then answering the inevitable question as to why this mistake is so commonplace - is a needless discussion with someone who will never meet her and has nothing to do with their family.

Gon does neither.

[he never talked about you]

One last pause. This time Gon fills it.

[thanks for looking after him]

[my big brother says you shouldn’t thank friends]

And yet Killua had, when Gon had offered his own thanks, responded in kind: thanks for everything. Had never objected to any thanks Gon had ever offered.

So Gon gives her his own advice, hard-won over two years of travelling and the long months of solitude that followed: [don’t take your friends for granite]

[granted?]

[yeah, thanks]

[you’re welcome <3]

Alluka is a sweet girl - as wide-eyed as Gon himself was once at the wider world beyond. Gon thinks of her smile, and he thinks of Killua, grasping her hand, easing her needlessly around obstacles a small child could toddle over.

He thinks of the cutting words Killua unsheathed any time the female staff at Heaven’s Arena had instructions for him, no matter how meekly put. He thinks of the scorn with which Killua speaks of Kalluto, hiding behind his mother’s skirts with his dolls and dresses; of his initial dismissal of Bisky as useless, in defiance of all logic - if the girl who tailed them could handle her own in Greed Island, she was clearly more than she appeared.

He thinks of Killua’s spats with Palm; of jealousy, and of the fact that the reflection in her brother’s eyes is now the window through which Alluka will see herself.

But Killua is no longer his obligation, nor his responsibility.

Gon spares that advice for himself: after a day’s work in town he seeks out the only other child on Whale Island. 

He holds no adoration for Nouko in his memories of her, nor she for him. She did not run away and expect him to follow; he would not have followed if she had. She was enough years younger to make all the difference and her parents’ to watch over. 

Her mother regards his overtures with skepticism; Nouko herself Gon approaches cautiously, in full view, remaining near the boundary of her room.

Which is heaped with books. They are dog-eared, second hand, and of older editions than the ones Mito purchased with the leftovers of Gon’s last Hunter contract. The space reeks of dust and mouldy paper; motes of both dot the light of her single desk lamp. Nouko peers past thick glasses that she hadn’t worn the last time he saw her.

“Why did you come _back_?” 

The question is laden with accusation; it takes Gon aback. “I got hurt in a fight and now I can’t be a Hunter anymore,” is all he can admit with broaching his contract to keep the secret of nen.  
“Oh.” This, she understands: she’s seen those men and boys who’ve lost a leg, an arm, an eye, the fingers of one hand to the sea, and now no ships will take them. Nouko asks the next with some sympathy: “Are you staying?”

Gon’s grin and shrug have worn thin enough to falter. “Not if I don’t have to,” he states, upbeat, as much to himself as to her.

This admission kindles an acknowledgement he has never felt from her before in all of their quickly averted, passing glances in town, when they had no choice but to enter the territory of the other. She offers him a seat on her unmade bed. Next to an array of pilled, threadbare stuffed animals - he turns fourteen this spring, while she turns eleven.

Nouko is studying to pass the entrance exams to a mainland middle school. To earn a scholarship to high school, and beyond; to become, she hopes, an accountant. Gon’s expression glazes; he can scarcely imagine a worse fate. But it makes good money, she says, and you can do it anywhere in the world when you have your certification. She has a year before the correspondence exams arrive. She wants to leave, and soon. Girls who stay on Whale Island past middle school never leave - they start families.

She looks meaningfully at Gon. Gon understands.

Gon wishes her luck. He has no such plan. That night, he finishes a whole page of homework before he realizes that Nouko has the same textbook and is in the same grade.

This realization spurs him onward for days, weeks, the chagrin and the possibility of - with gainful employment - middle school on the mainland. It drives him forward until the day he awakens to Mito shouting his name, having found his grandmother face-down in the garden. Neither of them know how long she has been there - when she awakens, she doesn’t either. 

There is no doctor on Whale Island. Nor a nurse, or a medic. A handful of sailors know first aid and their wives know forest remedies handed down from their mothers. A call to the mainland clinic reveals pains and loss of appetite Gon’s grandmother has never before mentioned. There is little the nurse can deduce from this; they spend the last of Gon’s savings on the voyage, and the last of Mito’s on the appointment that finds her inoperable cancer.

The large city hospitals in Yorknew and Padokea could cure it with extensive treatments. A Medical Hunter could cure it with a touch. 

Leorio is long gone off across the ocean, and they can afford neither of the rest.

There are medicines to prolong her life, and to ease her suffering. These are purchased at cost after a trip to the bank in town, where Gon sits in a plastic chair in the lobby and overhears the financial consultant MIto meets with in his dour colours use the word mortgage. Gon would ask Knuckle what he meant, but Knuckle hasn’t responded to his texts in months.

Their return is marked family dinners, and games. Together they watch their grandmother’s favourite moves; their television brought to her bedroom and the VDR newly dusted. Gon recognizes settings from Killua’s video games filmed in black and white where people act strangely and say strange things that remind Gon of his grandmother when she was younger. More islanders stop by to visit than have in all the years before. They take their leftovers, and when Mito refuses them, they leave the dishes absentmindedly by the door.

These grow fewer over the months she lingers on.

The catch this year is a bad one, even of the small coastal fish the mainlanders use for bait and scrap, eaten only by the islanders. The harvest is a bad one too; Gon’s schoolwork and his wandering, and Mito’s concern over them, have left little time for the garden. Mito declares that they have plenty of preserves - Gon’s grandmother reminds them that, as she has learned from other bad winters, preserved foods are not enough to survive.

The shoreline has been picked clean by the other islanders. Gon is hardy enough to dive for shellfish in the autumn, though these grow sparser and further between and he shivers for hours afterwards unless he has a hot bath. Before long he can see his own ribs and realizes that his catch is barely enough to feed himself for all the effort.

So he hunts.

Gon hunts further and deeper into the woods than the rest and soon there is nothing to be had within a mile of the town, not even forage. At first he hunts in his own way, with speed and ferocity. He stalks and he pounces. When he is too tired for this he thinks of Killua, and Killua’s old job, which Killua’s father called a profession of waiting. A snake stretched languidly on a branch, a spider or an eel curled in its burrow that awaits a hapless passerby. The domain of the insect, the reptile, the fish, the cold-blooded. So lays Gon, unmoving for hours under the first blanket of winter’s stillness that swallows all sound. He will not use snares.

His grandmother’s condition worsens. Mito accepts her portion of the chores; Gon should focus on his studies. Gon feeds them instead, and unclogs the gutters and shores up the roof to withstand the snow the best he knows how. Prepares the gardens to lay fallow. Watches his grandmother when Mito has collapsed in her own bed to sleep. At first, his grandmother must be helped to the table, to the toilet, to the bath to be washed and changed. Then her pan and soiled sheets must be changed; when she can no longer stand and no longer stand to be carried, she must be fed by hand.

She cries out in distress at all hours. Sometimes there is medicine for her; when small things around the house go missing medicine appears. 

She tells Gon that he should have left like his father. It is late at night when he tends her, and dim candlelit shadows rest in the bone hollows of her sunken face. She says that Mito should have left, too; that while she was glad for the company in her late years, it would have ended the same either way. Now Mito is nearly middle-aged with nothing to show for it save the child of a man who doesn’t love her.

Mito is 26; Mito looks much older. Her eyes are black-rimmed and she is thin as a child. She snaps at Gon when he forgets the firewood; nothing electric works and she must fetch her own water. She snaps at Gon for noises made at night; for not tending his grandmother quickly enough; for leaving dirt or blood on the floor of the entryway. All of her wine is gone.

When he reflects on it later Gon will not remember a time that winter when he was not hungry, cold, or exhausted. The interplay of the three is perfect perpetual motion: it is difficult to sleep when cold, difficult to warm up when hungry. He takes comfort in thoughts of old friends. He thinks of Killua asleep beside him - the scents of sweets and new-bought clothing. Of Killua’s warmth and the smoothness of his skin.

The small-billed swan heralds pictures of foam-topped hot chocolate, of glitter-spackled festive desserts and amusement park rides. Vast shopping centres with thousands of customers in expensive wool coats amidst a sea of electric lights. 

[how’s your winter vacation?] Killua asks, in a rare message with words attached. [you do the holy day thing right?]

When they’d prayed together at the dinner table, Killua hadn’t known what they were doing. Until he’d met Leorio, Gon hadn’t known that was old-fashioned. [not this year]

[what you up to instead?]

[ice fishing]

[sounds way more fun tbh]

[probably will be]

The barkeep of the island’s only tavern - sole seller of hot food and beds for sailors ashore for more than an afternoon’s offloading of goods - tolerates Gon while Gon charges his phone in the common room. Gon is always eager to bus dishes or hoist a crate. Gon stays clear of paying customers, unless they’d have it otherwise.

There are a handful of those, off the only ship that’s been in harbour for weeks, due to the same bad weather that has stranded them here longer than they’d planned. Winter routes call for a veteran crew, and these old hands are well-worn. Grown thoughtful, on land, rather than raucous. Gon is surprised to hear one acknowledge him. 

He recalls the voice from a lifetime ago, before he left Whale Island. The face is more weathered. Crew of one of the all-female ships that made the rounds to his hometown in particular - their navigator, she reminds him. Hired on with a new ship, as he can see. The last scattered when they’d had their fill. 

He’s been to half the places now that she’d told him of, to his younger self’s amazement. Seen the jungles of the south firsthand, the mesas in their deserts, the volcanoes of Padokea and the spire of Heaven’s Arena lit beaming red at night to ward off airships as a lighthouse does hidden shoals. 

But Gon has not been to the northern Azian continent. Not driven along its rolling steppes nor travelled its endless, meteor-strewn forests. She describes the enormous birds in its endless sky, the grey stalking cats with tails longer and thicker than foxes. The birds whose chicks plummet from jagged cliffs higher than a city skyline into the foaming roll of waves upon the rocks below. He has not been to the southern islands and seen the whalers Kite has gone to scuttle; he has not seen the open ocean, beyond the continents, where schools of fish a mile long are pursued by boat-swallowing shadows.

She speaks earnestly, animatedly about these things, and her words draw out the same pang of acknowledgment, of shared yearning, that Gon felt the last time they spoke. She will wander until the day she dies.

She is keen and worldly and understands the impossible triangles from Gon’s study books as effortlessly as Gon understands whether or not he’ll make a jump after his feet have left the ground, or what the weather will be like that day from how the air smells in the morning. In the context of two ships leaving different ports, at different speeds and tangents, and where they’ll meet in the middle, it does make more sense to him, if only barely.

Gon offers to take her into the woods again; she enjoyed the stroll a great deal last time. It’s bitterly cold, however, and her room upstairs is warm. She’d rather they share a drink there to thank him for the company.

He thinks of Killua.

Gon does go ice fishing for their supper the night and morning and afternoon of their holy day. Kon is comfortable behind him; thickly furred yet restive. Gon has given him access to his prey in the lean months - whatever Gon takes will mean less for him and his mate in the spring. For as small as the town is, the island could never support a pack of fifty large predators without the ocean. Fewer of Kon’s kits will survive this year, if any. If it were up to Gon, when he died they would leave him in the forest.

They burn Gon’s grandmother, when she dies, in the island way. Scatter her ashes across the sea to join the rest of her family, even those sons who were lost to it and never found. A marker is all that remains: the same as for Mito’s parents and Ging’s father. 

Kite once told him that everything came from the ocean, at some point in the distant past. Every plant and every animal. 

His grandmother believed God made everything. Like Leorio.

[what do you think happens when you die?]

[this is a weird question]

[do you go to heaven?]

[that’s a made up story to shake down gullible people for jenny. when you die you’re dead]

[what if you got eaten by a queen chimera ant?]

[then some of your memories would exist inside a soldier ant along with all the other animals it ate]

[koala says his souls been reincarnated] 

[yeah sure and I’m the secret lovechild of the king of kakin. koala’s a chimera ant with existential survivor’s guilt and the memories of a hitman. he’s not the hitman]

[what about kite?]

[kite’s different]

Silence stretches beneath Gon’s thumbs.

[didn’t your old man say kite was different?]

Whether or not something with the memories of something is that thing is beyond Gon’s grasp of philosophy; Ging seems to think so, and Ging has never lied to him, as far as he knows - Ging has never cared enough to.

Gon sleeps by day and wakes by night to preserve his solitude. The weather warms, slightly; this will be a hard spring. The earthy undertones of thaw in the air are overpowered by the ocean’s cold bite. These pass over Gon on his many midnight walks; he exists despite them. Gon watches the waves, silvered by harsh moonlight.

Enough time has passed for Gon to stretch and flex his memories of the past two years. Where once his thoughts recoiled from the movement as from a fresh, throbbing wound, he can now prod them. Open them for inspection and make sense of the damage.

On the face of it, in the moment, everything made sense: step by step, one choice led to another. The choice to enter the NGL, to proceed on to the hive, to stand and fight, to forgive Killua for choosing otherwise. To believe that Kite had survived, because to believe otherwise was to give up, abandon hope, abandon his friend. To believe that Kite was alive when the thing that he was told was Kite stood in front of him; to try to free him by any means necessary, even if those means might mean his own death. To threaten Pitou to save Kite; to kill her when she said she would kill Gon himself.

Yet these choices have cost him everything. Everything he worked for for two years. Everything he left for. His nen is gone; his friends have moved on with their lives. They would gladly still talk to him for a few minutes here and there if he asked, he’s sure, but without nen his presence in their lives serves no purpose. Without nen he has no place on the journey to the Dark Continent; without nen, he is another burden for Killua to protect in addition to his sister.

With nen he could have taken Association contracts and afforded his grandmother the best medical care in the world. Could have traded favours with Medical Hunters to cure her, to give her decades more to spend in good health. 

Gon threw it all away.

And for what? Yes, Pitou would have killed him if he hadn’t made his Contract, but what purpose did his survival serve anyone? Would Pitou have gone on to kill the others, or would she have surrendered upon learning that her King was dead? Other Ants had done so. Surely there were other answers. Other solutions. Only Gon couldn’t see them, because he was blinded by anger.

No, that isn’t right. Gon’s been angry before, many times in his life. When people are unfair; when they hurt the helpless; when they lie. None of these are sufficient to describe, to serve as any frame of reference, for what he felt about Pitou. That was something that didn’t just make his skin hot or his teeth grind or his stomach turn - half his world disappeared at the sight of her, half his consciousness, and his heart pounded so loudly he could barely hear Killua, standing right behind him.

He hated her. He wanted to kill her. He was going to kill her; it was the only possible outcome. One of them would die. Yes, there were other solutions, thousands of them, probably, like not going off alone with her to Peijing or not taking her to Peijing until the battle was over, all far more logical, rational, and doubtless more successful than what he had chosen, but in the end, they were impossible because the others would have stopped him from killing her.

And for that, he’d traded everything.

But that was how he’d ended up, not how he’d gotten there. Surely there were other paths Gon could have taken before that. Long before that. Questioning the successes that had brought them as far they’d come; acknowledging the luck that had allowed it - finding Bisky, mercy at the hands of the Troupe and others because they were children. Acknowledging that this would not always move others. Letting other, more experienced Hunters enter the NGL after they’d established it to be a threat. Letting other, more experienced Hunters take part in the Extermination - no, Gon would never have chosen that. Could never have. Kite’s fate was his fault, he’d abandoned him. He’d abandoned him, and Gon had to believe Kite was alive, or Gon himself was less than worthless. Kite _had_ to be alive, and Gon _had_ to save him; that misguided belief consumed him, consumed his every waking thought and the whole of his purpose until he arrived face-to-face with Pitou at the point of no return and she revealed the lie he’d staked his self-worth on. Shattered the shield he’d built against the guilt and grief that hovered, gently, over his shoulder in those months, breathing poison into his mind. Kite was dead, and it was all his--

Kite wasn’t dead.

The thought jars Gon enough to stumble on the slippery sea stones. Kite wasn’t dead. Pitou had lied to him, yes, but not the way he thought.

Kite had been alive the whole time, just as Gon had predicted. What had Ging said - an ability he could use to save himself in dire circumstances? Kite had saved himself, just as Gon had predicted. Kite was too clever, too powerful a Hunter not to have an ace up his sleeve - he was hurt, he was hiding, exactly as Gon had said. And Shoot, Knuckle, and Morel had rescued Kite in his stead, just as they promised they would. 

Gon’s downfall had come from ever doubting it. Ever letting himself believe, in some dark part of his mind, that his friends would fail. That he would fail. That things would ever turn out for the worst. 

They’d all thought they’d die in the Extermination, hadn’t they? Yet here they were, all except the Chairman, who’d chosen death - Shoot and Knuckle were stronger, their bonds strengthened, Palm with new powers and more confidence, Ikalgo a new purpose. 

Killua, too. He’d saved Gon from himself. Found what he wanted to do with his life. Perhaps, if Gon hadn’t done what he’d done, Killua never would have had the drive or the need to confront his family. Never would have freed his sister.

So it was all for the best. All of it was all for the best. Kite never died; all Gon had ever needed was faith in himself and faith in his friends.

Gon is here now for lack of faith.

_kite’s different_

Or is he?

For all he disregarded them at the time, Hisoka’s words have burrowed their way to the fore: _transmuters are fickle: what was once treasure can just as quickly become trash._ These meant nothing to Gon, then - he was clearly Killua’s treasure. Killua was a liar, yes: Killua lied and omitted and dissembled and evaded, but always sweetly, and always in Gon’s favour. Killua practiced tactical deception, not malicious.

How had Gon become something to be discarded, in Killua’s estimation? Was it because he is broken now, nenless? Or was it because of what he’d said in anger? Before that, when he’d lost hope?

Why had Killua never told him he had a sister?

There is so much they’ve never said to each other that perhaps this question isn’t fair. Gon should trust that Killua had his reasons. His family; her safety.

Neither of those things have changed, though. Killua’s family is still as dangerous, still as ruthless, as they ever were.

Wasn’t it Killua, after all, who said that she could do anything he wanted? Grant any of his wishes?

And if that’s so, why couldn’t she return his nen to him? Gon’s contract wasn’t for his nen alone - it was for his whole life, everything he had, all of his future possibilities. So his body had grown more powerful too; so his body had wasted along with nen when it was over. Nen is life energy; Ging said he could see Gon’s aura just fine.

Killua said Alluka could do whatever he wanted. Grant any of his wishes.

Gon is hard-pressed to imagine a more thorough way to be discarded. It’s genius. A tactical brilliance that befits his best friend: Gon has been healed, Gon is well, Gon has been sent to pasture to live out the rest of his days. Killua is guiltless and blameless and there is no way a nenless Gon could follow him now, not with the threats posed by his family and the world to his sister. 

And what can Gon say to that? Complain to Killua that his sister didn’t ‘fix him right’? Wouldn’t that be hubris, as Ging put it? Shouldn’t he be grateful for what he has? 

Killua said not to call him. That they would email and text. Where words can be carefully considered before they are typed. Where they can be ignored until the storm of emotions has blown over. Where Gon can type one word to Killua’s fifty, misspell half of them, and look the other half up in the dictionary. Where Gon can’t hear the tone of Killua’s voice and how it sometimes cracks when Gon is angry and Killua is lying.

Gon is done fighting off-balance.

He dials Killua’s number. Dials it again, when Killua doesn’t pick up. Killua will give in first. He always does.

Gon learns that at the point of starvation he will indeed set snares.

Killua edges warily around the bait until he has examined it for threats; finding nothing, Killua sinks his teeth in. Relishes the small talk of Gon’s homework and hunting and the new clothes Killua bought and the candy he ate and the video games he played. Gon lowers the trap slowly, imperceptibly, until the door is closed and Gon is standing outside of it looking in.

His back to the wall, Killua omits, dissembles, and evades. He says that his sister cannot raise the dead - at least, that he knows of - at a time when he had led Gon to believe he too thought that Kite was alive. When he cannot rationalize this contradiction Killua stumbles, flails at the bounds of his enclosure, and pleads the unfalsifiable: he didn’t think of it.

He, who spent days before the Extermination examining possible scenarios from every angle, knowing it could mean their lives, knowing that Gon was willing to trade his life for this - he didn’t think of it.

It couldn’t be that Killua hadn’t remembered her in time; Gon got him to admit that first, before he revealed his conclusion. It couldn’t be that Killua was unwilling to ask her to save the life of a friend - he’d proven that much already. It couldn’t be that the Extermination happened too fast to seek her help - it had happened too quickly, but that information would have obviated the need for Pitou’s help, for Gon’s journey to Peijing. If Killua really, truly did not know that Kite was dead, they could have wished him better safely afterwards.

 _I don’t think she_ can _bring back the dead--_

Unless he did know.

Gon’s parents died in an accident. No, that was Mito’s parents. Gon’s father abandoned him. No, Mito sued him for custody. Ging would have been a terrible father. Mito was much better.

_This way I get to keep you._

Killua didn’t think of it.

Fine.

“It’s fine, Killua. It wasn’t your problem.”

Just as the words he spoke before were true and untrue, so are these; they rise to his throat with less bile but they are just as bitter and the taste they leave in his mouth is just as displeasant.

Gon still doesn’t know the answer to Ging’s question.

He doesn’t know how he can be better in the future. Keep himself from making the same mistake again.

He knows it wasn’t fair - knows it and regrets it the whole march back to Mito’s house, as the ice-bite of the spring sea laps against his ankles, draws him seaward with the receding of each wave though he remains exactly where he was when it passes. He knows very little else.

Perhaps Alluka really doesn’t have the power to restore his nen. Perhaps that is beyond her strength; perhaps that was part of Gon’s own contract. Perhaps it’ll come back on its own, in time. Perhaps he simply needs time to heal. To learn to do it the right way, this time. Wing said it would take six months to see auras, that way - a year to use them. 

Where will he find this year? To dedicate himself to training. To feed himself, while offering nothing of value. Knowing it might be futile.

Whale Island is picked bare.

Perhaps Alluka chose to do this, on her own. Maybe she’ll give it back when she’s done holding onto Killua; when she gives Killua back, like she said she would.

Perhaps Killua really didn’t think of it.

Gon soaks his numb red feet in the tub; Mito snaps at him for wasting warm water.

Warmth returns without as the days pass, as it inevitably must. With it green things and young animals; a foxbear cub that gnaws on the desiccated remnants of its kin that did not last the winter. Another that paws through kitchen scraps left unboiled. Sometimes, Gon opens a textbook and closes it again.

Ships return to the habour; greeted with laborious enthusiasm by the strain-faced islanders, they find precious little for sale and what little is for sale to be sold precious.

Mito tells him to see if there’s anything they need. 

He's already done so, of course. Gon tells her as much. There were no services that he could offer them - but, he tells Mito, perhaps hers would be more to their liking. 

Mito leaves his packed bag on the doorstep.

As luck would have it, the next boat in harbour has lost a boy overboard since their last port of call and could use another deckhand. With no father to teach him, all Gon knows about sailing is what he’s overheard from the sailors in town and what he’s read in the few books he enjoys, but he is spry and strong and eager and when he tells the captain that he is sixteen, she believes him.

Gon’s new home is smaller than his first ship, aboard which he met his first friends, and lower to the water. It has to be - it is a fishing vessel, and its net is unrolled from a spool at the stern. Further up the deck are holes that lead to huge containers packed with ice; they stay covered until the net is taken in and the fish are plucked off by hand and tossed down into them. 

It doesn’t seem sporting, to Gon, to give your prey no chance of fighting back. To use machines to reel them in so that the last desperate lashes of their flailing silvery bodies are wasted. But he is eager to learn, and there is little else to do during fair weather on their way to the first run of the season. If the net spools out in a straight line, how does anything get caught? Couldn’t they just swim around it?

The captain is baffled, to her own delight, by this quaint forest-dweller who by all rights ought to come from a long line of fishermen. 

“I’ve been fishing plenty of times,” Gon protests. “I caught the biggest fish on the island.”

“I mean on a body of water larger than your garden shed, boy,” laughs the captain, “with something other than a string with a hook on it.”

From her, Gon learns that they have several nets, and that they match the line of each to the colour of water; dark and deep and clear midnight green, pale clouded river delta jade, bright shallow blue. The nets are woven so that the size of the gaps fits the size of the fish they’re after: too small, and they’ll swim through, too large and they’ll not get caught. Mostly. The striped silverlings that are this crew’s livelihood get their heads in just far enough to go past the gills and no farther. When the fish wriggles backward to escape those gills act like an arrowhead: flared out to either side to breathe.

It’s clever, Gon admits. It’s honest, says the captain.

Gon has almost as little to do during bad weather - the crew is small and know their roles well. They are unphased when Gon scents a storm on the horizon; yes, so say the other ships over the radio where the weather has passed already. His balance and his hard stomach are natural; the crew seems little impressed by that, too: they’ve all got sea legs, and Gon wouldn’t be worth much if he didn’t. 

The real work begins when they reach the continent. They are one of what must be hundreds of other small vessels at the mouth of the Resarf River - the largest in the whole Kukan’yu Kingdom. The river is so wide that it spreads out as far as even Gon can see, the furthest boats bobbing dots on a water-grey blanket that reaches the horizon. Gon thinks there couldn’t possibly be enough fish for this many. 

“About four million, this year.”

The first time the net goes out and back in again it teems with flashing silverlings. And the next. And the next. Some caught by the throat, as promised; others are wrapped again and again,, each twist to escape having worsened its predicament. They are slimy and wriggly and the gloves he wears are thick and slippery and if he removes them the scales could make his skin bleed. Gon’s untaught hands slow their work; the crew gripes at him. The other deckhand hits him with a fish and tells him to sort out the bad ones and toss them back. The blighted and the overly mangled - Whale Islanders would eat these, and gladly, but they won’t sell to the markets and only cheaply to the canners.

It is hours and days of sleepless work and Gon is cold and wet for every minute of it. He must be nimble when his fingers are numb; he must be strong when he is exhausted. They work in the dark and in the rain. The silverlings have come to spawn and when the run is over there will be no more of them here. 

Gon does not steal naps. He does not dawdle. He pulls more than his share of weight when the net is caught on driftwood; when the gear to reel it in is stalled. He scrubs slime off the deck without complaint. 

Gradually, the crew carps at him less. The first mate asks him what his name was, again.

Massive container vessels come right out to meet the fishing boats themselves near the shore, emblazoned with names Gon has seen on shelves and sandwiches: Glover Leaf, Cold Seal. The catch is sold right then and there and with an aplomb that would make Zepile proud.

Gon makes 50,000 jenny.

He and Killua have stayed in hotel rooms that cost more per night than this; it would have been enough for more than a month’s worth of food for himself, his grandmother, and Mito.

They spend a single night on shore that Gon sleeps through like a stone before they are off to the next river. 

Gon learns to wrangle the silverlings; to grip them hard but gentle. To keep out from underfoot; to keep dry socks in a plastic bag in the cabin; to spot deadheads in the water. 

Gon wins the respect of the crew in its unreserved entirety on the day he makes his worst mistake. He lets a knot of badly tangled line pass as the net is spooled out; he is not fast enough to fix it nor to stop the spool. It will have to be reeled in, reset, or that section written off as a loss - in irritation the other deckhand minding the net opposite him reaches across to tug the last of it straight, is caught about the wrist and dragged out and under before there is time to gasp.

The captain stops the spool - she knows that reeling the net back in may crush him and that the net is too heavy to haul by hand and that in spring even temperate waters could freeze a man with shock and that if he has breathed in that water in panic he could be drowned already. Gon knows none of this and needs to know none. He has kicked off his boots; his knife is in his teeth; he is over the side; in that order but only barely. 

The seawater is muddy with river sediment and stings his eyes as any salt water does - Gon climbs blindly downward like a spider drawn to the vibrations of a struggle. He climbs until shades of milk-green have deepened to the hue of the cedar groves at the heart of Whale Island in the evening. Past a sudden drop in temperature so bracing that his body recoils from the sensation. Until he reaches a heaving mass in the netting: in his violent thrashes to escape Gon’s crewmate has only worsened his predicament, and the smooth man-made fibres are as unforgiving for him as they are for any other animal. They do not snap or fray. 

Some of the lines are cut: Gon’s crewmate must have gotten his knife out. It would take hours to free him from them all. The trapped youth’s eyes flash bright as a caged foxbear and his movements are wild.

So Gon cuts around him. Where the net still tautly settled. This takes minutes at most. Then he balls up the excess in his fist and hauls his bundle upward, a catch lighter than some of the fish he’s landed. 

Gon is wary of the prop but the captain has already cut the engines; no sooner does he reach the hull than they are both hauled upwards by burning warm hands. Gon coughs and his crewmate vomits seawater. It blends with blood from where the other man had sliced too frantically with the knife and from the net-pattern gouges on any skin he’d exposed. Gon’s hands have contracted into stiff, useless claws long before they free him. The captain and the first mate wrestle him out of his wet clothes and under a heap of blankets.

Gon protests that he’ll be fine in a few hours, and after a fit of shivering and a cup of hot tea, he is. The other deckhand feels clammy to the core all night and in the end they have to bathe him in warm water to make his shivering stop at all. He is exhausted for days; Gon helps the others take in the catch the next morning.

The other deckhand buys him a drink; the first mate not only remembers his name, but uses it. The captain asks him how long he can hold his breath.

Gon straightens. “Swimming hard? Five minutes.” 

She frowns. “Five minutes? I know clam diver girls who go longer than that.”

Gon furrows. “Really?”

“Yes, really.”

They circle the continent clockwise, river by river, northward. Their small craft clings to the coast, rarely out of sight of land, and when they are they know the island where they are headed. They hop from village to village, island to island, strait to strait. Past the continent’s tip Gon sees ships flying the flags of Jappon and Padokea; sometimes these are vast vessels the size of the main floor of Heaven’s Arena - of Gon’s entire hometown. Their hulls are so high a man could die if he fell off the edge. The captain tells him they are bound for the open ocean.

She tells him, during the long lulls while they travel, that they have no spools because they are seiners - Gon has seen these, but none so large with a draft so deep could ever have docked in Whale Island’s harbour. Their nets close around their catch in circles; everything trapped within is dragged aboard. They catch not only small silverlings but enormous spike-faced spiral fish and finbacks, too. She tells him that the seiners that fish in shallow coastal waters drag the bottom, that runs that were once twenty million are four, or one, and that she thinks those are to blame.

He discovers, when he has the chance to ask them, that the seiners think the same of the swarms of gillnetters that take the silverlings from the water right before they have a chance to spawn.

Gon chats with these, and others, when they sell their catch and when they fuel their boats and when they go to town to drink. He is offered company and he declines. His crewmates speak with him easily, if they feel the need to speak at all. Gon does his work quickly and without correction. It leaves more time to think; instead he asks questions of every possible thing and before the season is out he can steer through shallows and troubleshoot the engine. 

He passes the summer in a haze of dampness, diesel fumes, and hard labour. There is a single night that his body and mind have the capacity to keep him awake and through it he feels very foolish. Recalls that Killua hasn’t messaged him in months. Types the word [sorry] and receives [np] and a picture of a purple panda in reply.

When the season ends Gon does not return to Whale Island. Cast adrift ashore, he follows the other fishermen to odd jobs. The nets must be mended, the hulls scraped of their barnacles, repaired and repainted. Citizens of Padokea and Jappon who fish will be paid to sit idle in the off-season, but not here. Gon does not have the funds to travel; he can guide, carry, tend a bar.

The winter bleeds away dreamlike into spring and Gon is hired on again. A seasoned hand, better paid. He trains the new deckhand. The captain calls it a pilgrimage; to Gon it seems more like a migration in search of food.

Word spreads that Gon is able and reliable, quick to learn anything he puts his hands to. He has a strong back, decent wits, and good sense. Respectful, too: doesn’t drink to excess, whore, or brawl. 

Unlike many, Gon recovers from all the strained joints and bad limbs that come with his line of work and when he recovers he does it thrice as quickly. He doesn’t need to lie fallow in the off season to lick his wounds. He’s already seen the shores of the continent that claims his home as its own, all its rivers, straits, fjords, and narrows. There is no reason he can’t see another.

If a ship has rigging, Gon can climb it effortlessly - it has nothing on the World Tree, or even the forest treetops. If a welder needs something lifted, Gon can lift it; if he needs to bear the lashing wind and rain or the oppressive heat or brave poisonous sharks, Gon is delighted at the chance and chipper the next morning. 

He learns to pilot and he learns to spearfish and he learns from a clam diver girl the techniques they use to control their heart rate and breathing so that he can hold his breath for ten minutes and it is easier without Killua around to complain about her company.

_‘Find out what you can do as you are now.’_

Gon is still stronger than most, spryer than most, limberer than most. He still has the sense of smell and sense of direction he had before he ever learned nen. He is still amazed by those things that terrify others. He is still going to see the world.

In the mirror he sees those things that have changed and will never go back to the way they were: the new hair on his face, the white remnants of the angry red lines that used to striate his arms, back, and shoulders. Pale traces the muscle he gained in the NGL so rapidly and just as quickly lost upon his departure. No one has asked for his ID card since he left home.

Gon parts on good terms with his old captain and takes up with ships headed for deeper water. 

These have crews that number in the dozens. They sail far out of sight of land, to places where there would be no sight of land should one sail weeks in any direction. Most days they travel on a glassy grey carpet; white-pilled waves bundled in thick rows of weft, the warp their uneven contours in a pattern that reaches the horizon. On days without wind they sail slowly under engine power atop a great mirror upon which they are the only stain.

Their sole company in kind is found at the crossroads that bore wake into this blue desert, erased swifter than any sand by the breeze: ships that tower over even their vessel - enormous beasts of burden laden as close to the waterline as they dare with the cargo they carry between the continents. They glide in procession across the shortest distance to their destination while Gon’s ship darts past furtively in search of prey.

They are not alone. Far from these well-carved lanes winged dolphins cavort close to them in curiosity. Some of the crew says these are a sign of good luck; others believe they must be appeased with fish or they will cause disaster; others that they are just fish themselves and the Japponese eat them. Shadows of their larger brethren pass beneath the keel before bursting like geysers from the surface in a spectacular spray that rocks the ship. The Japponese eat these too, they say; so Gon has heard, from Kite. Then there are the sleek racing sharks and the schools of small, leaping fish and everything in between; at night, sometimes, their passage churns up a billion blinking microscopic stars within the black void below.

Their nets and their catch could never be hauled by hand - at some 600 lbs only Gon can drag a single greenfin, let alone a score of jumpjacks. They are placed on hooks and carried by chains to the ice storage as if they were hunks of butcher’s meat. The best and biggest will be saved for the Azian fish markets where the betting is as fierce as the Southernpiece Auction for the finest cuts. The small and the damaged will be sliced up and sold to Kukan’yu and Padokea. 

The sky here has colours Gon can never capture with his cell phone. He tries; the image is a faded imitation of bright silver in the shade of concrete, black where violet velvet clouds roiled across the evening sky, and a bland orange husk where the sun to Gon’s eyes blazed like the inside of a volcano before it deepened to the colour of blood and seeped into the sea.

His crewmates call the ocean a woman, some of them: what lies beyond the surface is vast and unknowable as her tumultuous moods. Others a pitiless king who passes judgement on those who dare trespass in his domain. Still others say that it is just water, and so are we, at that.

To Gon the endless expanse is nostalgic and foreign all at once and it draws him downward, deeper, to discover new and exciting strangeness; to surface with a gasp, shuddering, his skin glistening wet and stinking of salt, when he can take no more and get no closer to where the blue becomes black and there is no bottom.

The danger it presents must be met head-on just the same. Out here there are no safe harbours; they are alone together where their connection is at its most fundamental, its most primal. When in his transient tempests of feeling the sea can transform from soft mirror into rolling hills of white-marbled slate that will smash their ship apart should they stumble, Gon turns the bow into each and is lifted, unscathed, to plunge into the next valley and start anew. For all the power and ferocity that lurks beneath his placidity, the sea yields to the daring, holds him aloft, and gives him all he needs to thrive.

For the timid and the unwary the sea has no mercy: twice Gon’s ship responds to distress calls to find lifeboat-stranded survivors shellshocked among debris; once, to the site of a tanker they never found, as if it never was.

They are at sea for months, rather than days. They spend weeks in port, rather than hours or a season. Still in that time most of Gon’s shipmates manage to spend their money, on drink or comfort or whatever fascinates them about solid ground; Gon does not. Gon tucks it away and when he has enough, he sends some to Mito. Who sends it back the same day the transfer goes through.

He sends it instead to Nouko, who promises to pay him back with interest.

On shore Gon sees the news: the Hunter Association has turned the NGL into a permanent Examination site. Citizens of the surrounding countries in the Mitene Union who faced violence at the hands of the Chimera Ants raid its borders to slaughter whole villages full of Ants and those who harbour them. Kakin has a new King; the Black Whale foundered and the new royalty and a handful of Hunters were among its few survivors. 

Messages arrive from old friends during these interludes. Palm and Ikalgo’s business is doing well, though they can’t travel to the Mitene Union anymore without harassment. Shoot and Knuckle would love to have a drink with him any time they happen to be in the same city. Morel is exploring the Dark Continent with Gon’s old man - he sends his well-wishes. Zepile has finally passed the Hunter Exam - he met a man named Genthru in a prison tower, who said he’d met Gon, once. Each feels odd to receive, as if they came from another lifetime or were meant to be sent to a different person; Gon never knows what to say. His responses are rarely more than a word: [hi] [ok] [wow] [great], and he wonders what they would think of his plan to buy his own ship someday.

At Killua’s pictures he’ll smile fondly, and type whole sentences before deleting them.

By the age of sixteen Gon has visited every major deep water harbour city in the V6. Kakin Port City is the last. Leorio and Bisky live there now, so he visits them, and that oddness persists, as if he’d turned down the wrong street in a town he knew very well. They are attendants to the King - his private doctor and personal bodyguard - a tall man who is never seen without sunglasses, a man rumours say slew Beyond Netero in single combat. They are both very busy; they speak little, eat quickly. When asked about Kurapika Leorio tells him that he’s returned to his people. Bisky pats Gon once, firmly, between the shoulderblades before she leaves; Leorio rubs the bridge of his own nose and promises to be a better friend, someday.

Gon has seen what he came to see. There are no more mysteries on the surface of the open ocean between the continents; only charter ships go beyond them, once a generation, and few of those ever return. Yet there is so much left to explore: the inner sea between the two halves of Azia, the bitterly frozen sea of Aksala around its volcano island, the eastern coast of Yorbia - a continent all but uninhabited outside of the United States of Saherta far to the west.

He says farewell to his shipmates and finds a trawler heading south from Dole Harbour. Little lives to the east in Yorbia, but there are some precious rarities a bold few might find and sell for a year or more’s worth of a gillneter’s silverlings. Hooded whipsquid are extinct elsewhere; they are the family crest of a mafia clan in Yorknew and a favourite among collectors.

Whale Island has dragnets and trawlers. Killua mistakes the latter for a troller; when Gon explains the difference, Killua says the troller seems like something Gon himself would invent: a boat with what amounts to multiple fishing rods. Gon needs little explanation for this, and less for the jigging lines set in the water on a moonlight to catch ordinary squid by the bucketful.

The deep sea jiggers outside Yorknew use machines that run perpetually, their lines cast for a mile behind the ships, their moon a blinding bright LED that casts a daytime hue upon the water. Squid fall into their troughs in the hundreds and thousands for the millions of waiting mouths in the city. 

Whipsquid are rare coastal carnivores. Gon’s new boat leaves these floating factories far behind to chase the morning sun. On shore the ranched grassland thins to scrubgrass steppes; from these to rock-strewn mesas where the hardiest succulents shelter in shallow soil. Beyond the last stone large enough to sit on there is only sand. 

Here the sea is neither milky green nor storm grey nor deep blue or fathomless black: it is azure all the way down to the bottom, which can be seen from thirty yards above. It has the sheen and clarity of well-cut crystal, of a forest pond of absolute stillness that reflects a radiant sky. Gon’s world is pale and cyan: sparse wisps of clouds, sun-bleached dunes, and transparent waters that range in temperature from pleasantly cool to tepid in the shallows.

They sail over miles of dead coral hardened funeral white arrayed in calcified formations like the ivory statues of attendants in an Azian king’s tomb. The water, too, the captain tells him is so clear because it is lifeless.

The last of the live reefs are as far from human dwellings as it is possible to be in the known world: just past the outflung fingertips of Yorbia’s eastern peninsulas and alive with the nutrients that drip from the salty seasonal streams that sometimes reach the ocean. A flurry of fish in every hue scatters in their wake. They work at night; in the day Gon floats beside the anchor to escape the heat. Submerged, he is so still that the reef-dwellers creep out of their holes to nip at his toes.

This far south the moon rises with the splendour of a monochrome dawn, its hues those of a subdued upscale apartment in Yorknew rather than an oil painter’s manic impressions of summer, but no less fat and round and incandescent. Its light silvers the waves, squashed between two black canvases. 

Like moths battering themselves against a porchlight the squid swim up to school and to spawn. Whipsquid are cleverer, darker, and rarely take the jig. They predate the others, unaware that other predators are watching them in turn. When there is blood in the water the net is cast, dragged, and anything without sleek black tendrils is released.

Most such casts are fruitless, but the price for the whipsquid is such that, Gon is told, a handful are enough for an expedition to break even. More than that and they will profit handsomely; in precious few years the catch is bountiful and Gon suggests, naively, that that would make them rich. But the price of the whipsquid is contingent on its rarity and buyers, too, are rare. If there are too many of them on the market they lose their prestige and thus their value. In those bumper years the excess dead are dumped back into the ocean. Delicacies for other mouths.

This is not one of those years: it is days before they find a single whipsquid. They place it preciously on ice - they will be here for weeks yet longer, so it must freeze. The crew grumble about whether or not they will be paid; the captain drives them into ever more daring waters, between tiny broken islands, between shoal and sandbar.

During one promising cast the wind turns. They pay it little mind; storms are rare and shelter common. Glistening black bodies begin to come up and there is good cheer - they are in accord that this is worth grounding, worth the cost of hull repairs. Indeed they would have weathered the waves quite handily.

But when the net snags on the reef it does so full to bursting with squid, as heavy as the boat is buoyant. This too they could handle by cutting or dropping it; they do, as they have others. It is the jerk of taught line that tugs them haplessly without friction parallel to the stormfront, and in one heaving roll the deck is up to their knees in water and the engine is swamped. 

They bail swiftly and skillfully steer into the leeward side of an islet but the damage is done. The gale is over in hours; by daylight, they try to fix it, but it is beyond the abilities of the men and tools they have on-hand 

They still have battery power. They drop anchor and radio for help. Sahertan vessels will come out this far for ships flying their flag. Begerosse and Ochima will, too, for a fee. Hopefully, one will show up in a few days. A far cry from the gillnetters who could always see one another’s boats and the deep sea vessels’ adherence to well-trod shipping lanes; the price of being a solitary nomad rather than a pack hunter.

Those few days come and go. Within a week the batteries run low and worse, much worse, they are low on water. They should have made a stop at a scattered settlement by now; without the engine they cannot desalinate the sea.

Arguments flare and settle and flare up again: they should raise anchor and let the currents carry them inland, or toward the southern islands. They should stay where they are; where they made their distress call, their known location, to be saved. They should save themselves. They are not that far from land - Gon could swim there in hours - but that land is every bit as inhospitable as the open ocean. And from there, go where? Meteor City? They would die in the desert.

When the reserves run dry they eye the ice around their catch. The fight over this is brief - jenny is no good to a dead man. 

They agree to triage their specimens. A reef-battered squid with old war wounds from whales is the first to go, as is the ice around it. Whipsquid has a curious taste, one that reminds Gon of sour cuttlefish and is rubbery when eaten raw, but he wouldn’t pay 100,000 jenny for it. 

Each day that passes thins their wallets and their patience. Tempers are raw; morale is worse; Gon spends what time he can adrift in lukewarm water. When he is aboard he sits atop the cabin by himself, scrolling through old pictures.

Himself. Cool animals. Himself and Mito. Himself and Leorio, Kurapika, and Killua. Himself and Killua. Himself and Killua. Himself and Killua. Himself, Killua, and his replacement. Himself and Mito. Cool animals. Himself.

Killua and Alluka. Killua and Alluka and their hotel. Killua and Alluka and their new clothes. Killua and Alluka and their dinner. Killua. Killua. Killua. A hundred sweets, toys, sunsets, vistas, rides, novelties, and sometimes, Killua’s thumb.

If not for this Gon would have missed the bar that flickers, briefly, at the corner of his phone from time to time. There is no cell service, not for a hundred miles. This is qNet, because Greed Island is so close.

They wouldn’t make it there if they tried, even if Gon had memorized the coordinates. Even if they wouldn’t be immediately expelled. The currents won’t take them. 

Through the Hunter cafe, however, he might hire someone to help them. Someone might be close enough to make it in time. Might tell, for a price, the Yorbian coast guard to start sailing in their direction. 

A Hunter’s fees would bankrupt him. It would cost every jenny he’d saved just to access the cafe - and then what? Throw himself on their good offices? Beg? Who is he to any of them, and what do they care? He could ask his friends, of course. If any of them happen to be monitoring it at this time. Indebt himself to them forever, waste everything he’s worked for, be rescued from a mess in which he got himself. If any of them could even get to him in time. If he died before they reached him all he’d have accomplished is to cause them misery.

Better they never know they could have helped.

Killua would help. Killua would try; Killua is continents away and weeks or months by airship, but he would try. He would use his family connections. Ask his little brother in the Phantom Troupe. Get his sister to wish all of Gon’s problems away.

Or would he?

All Gon has to do to find out is admit that he is helpless.

And die waiting for one last call, eyes glued to crumbs tossed from Killua’s plate out of pity.

Gon is older and he has had time to ponder. In the flicking of the lock screen open Gon now sees Mito tossing out Ging’s photographs and his trinkets, only to put them back on shelves again. He sees her taking in the child he’d pawned off on her, and by fighting it in the courts, by making it hers, she tells herself it was her idea all along and her role in his life completed, Ging never thinks of her again.

He moved on to a better and brighter future. While she stayed, in their hometown, for the sake of that man’s child, who would rather be anywhere else, and that man’s mother, who wishes she wouldn’t. Because maybe, someday, that man would return.

Gon hurls his phone into the ocean.

The ants drink dew off of leaves. Steam rises from the sea on misty mornings that taste like clouds. Plastic tarps for the nets and plexiglass for the windows will bake water in pots hot enough to boil; condensed, these will drip down the corners and into other containers. There is barely enough for a cup or two each day for each man by this method, but if they lay languid in the cabin’s shade it is enough to, in great discomfort, survive. Their lips are chapped bloody and it burns to piss yellowish-brown urine by the time they are rescued, but they are rescued at last. A Yorbian patrol seeking stragglers from a flotilla that tried to escape the Mitene Union and flee into their borders. 

Gon, as with most of the rest of his crew - save their Yorbian captain - lacks citizenship papers of any kind. He never imagined why he would bring them, as he has never brought them anywhere else before. Like as not the only ones he possesses are his adoption documents, signed under the legal authority of Kukan’yu, a place Gon first visited at the age of twelve. And like as not those still sit where they have always sat: the top drawer of Mito’s dresser. Ging never brought a birth certificate.

It is with a flash of his Hunter license that Gon is released. He listens with rapt attention as his captain explains how to find an official that will accept that the work permits of the rest were lost overboard, for the right price.

They are set ashore in a desert city. One of the few places this far east with sweet standing water, it was an old resting place for the nomads who once traveled from coast to coast, before the meteor fell. The mountains behind the cove in which it sits trap the clouds just enough for seasonal rain - these mountains give way to cliffs that sheet right down into the ocean, and the city itself is carved into them. Sea travelers from the Mitene Union and Begerosse stop here on their way to Saherta’s inner sea, and with the rise of trade with Azia and the influx of refugees from Mitene, what was once an historic oasis town has exploded into a well-used port.

Or so a man wrapped head-to-toe in robes that shimmer like rainbows tells him for 50 jenny.

Gon has never seen its like before: next to the man there is a girl who eats fire from a sword, and passersby walk lizards on harnesses as if they were dogs. A woman offers to tell Gon who he’ll fall in love with by the shape of his fingernails. There are objects from the southern seas beyond the continents: bone flutes carved from unicorn whale horns, candy-striped bears they call man-eaters. People who have lived there their whole lives speak strange words no one else seems to understand; there are pictures made out of thousands of coloured stones set into the cliff face the size of houses and no one Gon asks knows who made them or what they depict. 

Gon tries the fire eating and burns his tongue before he figures out that he is supposed to close his mouth to put it out. Gon tries breathing a violet smoke the locals love and sees all the stars fall from a multi-colored sky and turn his hands into snakes. They aren’t aggressive snakes at all, so Gon plays with them quite contentedly until he awakens in an alley the next morning. Gon jumps from the highest cliffs into the ocean and eats the urchin eyes that are the city’s specialty and walks every street end-to-end.

Word spreads from his crewmates that he is a Hunter, and this draws more attention than he expects. Hunters never come here, he is told. Those who come here to trade have little of real value to anyone who makes that kind of jenny - bony reef fish, trinkets from Mitene, far-flung curiosities it would be more convenient to buy at auction elsewhere. The city has no political importance, no armies or archives, no secret ruins as yet unexplored. It is a place for poor people to drink water on their way to Meteor City, a local tells him with a laugh.

Gon asks if they’ve ever seen a man who looks like him before. A short man; skinny, baby-faced and badly shaven - wearing robes and cloth around his head in an outsider’s attempt at the old desert style. 

No one has. 

This puzzles Gon for an entire evening alone until he finally understands why.

Ging might travel beyond the world known to man. He might someday see the stars. Touch the moon with his bare hands.

But he will never sit _here_ , among the wizened trees that claw their way out of sparse cliff soil, with a colour-changing lizard in his lap. There is nothing impressive about them. They are waist-height at most, and look much the same as any other. One would have to really look at them, really watch, wait, observe, thoroughly and with patience that the stone pictures from a millennia ago depict exactly the same trees with the same-shaped branches in exactly the same locations.

Let Ging keep his ruins. These are alive. They have been since before the city was built, and will be long after it falls into the sea.

Ging has never lost his nen but Ging has never fought a Chimera Ant, either. Never felt their baleful black aura; never stood his ground against the way it seeped dagger-like against his resolve. Never had the fate of five million rest on his shoulders. Ging has never met a Kurta. Ging has never fought the Phantom Troupe. Ging has never had a Zoldyck fall in love with him.

Ging has never traded everything for one chance to rise above the emptiness of failure.

If anything the old man has catching up to do.

So it is that Gon enthusiastically accepts an offer of employment on a ship bound for Padokea. He has earned a reputation for being hardy, reliable, good with his hands and clever when the chips are down. The one thing he lacked - experience - he now has enough of for his name to reach the ears of those captains who require the most capable crews.

Off the eastern coast of Padokea lies the Sea of Aksala. Between it and the uninhabited volcanic island halfway to northern Azia are some of the roughest waters in the world. Frost frigid, riddled with icebergs and tidal rocks, prone to storms. The home of the emperor crab: a delicacy served at the finest dining establishments for a month’s worth of city rent. Unlike whipsquid they are hardly sparse, or endangered; rather, they require pluck, daring, and steady ship. A man could earn himself five years worth of wages in a single season.

His former captain writes him off as a madman. But what little of their catch they could salvage had barely paid for food, lodging, and repairs. Gon is freed of his contract.

The Aksalan Sea is a graveyard for foolhardy youths, he says. There are stretches of it that no one, not even a Hunter, has ever lived to see.

Gon tells him that that is just what he wanted to hear.

His new crew will need a way to contact him - Gon snaps up the first cell phone within his budget that he takes a shine to. It is green and has a tail like Meleoron for a strap. He responds yes without thinking when the kiosk lady asks him if he already has an account, and if he would like to reactivate it. His friends at the very least should know that he is still alive.

Gon takes up his current favourite spot on the cliffside above the balmy bay. The night is new and not yet black; held up to a bright enough light, black is always something else, isn’t it? The blue moon reveals that the stars bob in a sea of indigo, lightening in hue toward the horizon like watery paint leeching toward the edges of paper. He twirls his phone by the tail. He tears out only a few hairs navigating its setup menu.

An icon that depicts two googly eyes or otherwise the abstract symbol of some thirteenth horoscope informs Gon that he has voicemail.

Gon hasn’t had voicemail in years.

Back when people called him he always answered; now they don’t. He hasn’t been in service range for much of these past seasons, either - Killua’s texts and his images arrive belatedly when he is at port. There has been no signal on the entire northern coast of Yorbia. 

His first thought is that Mito is dead. Nouko has his number - she would call, for that. Or else someone else must be. Gon’s jaw clenches and he wonders if there is some way to delete them without checking even as he knows he would not do that. 

No, no one called when Kurapika died. That isn’t the answer.

Kite said they would all always be friends because of their experiences and in some ways Gon knows that that is true. If he moved to Kakin Port City he and Leorio would get drinks together on the weekends. Bisky would offer to train him. If he ran into Kite and Stick and Lin and the rest by chance they would embrace enthusiastically and catch up on old times. Like the sea below him, some bonds time does not destroy.

But like the sea below him, time changes everything it touches. As it flows their memories erode until all that is left is emotion. The words of a conversation wash away until all that is left is how one felt about it. The fine details of a familiar face wear down like stone statues left exposed to the elements until all that remains is the impression of eyes turned in one’s direction.

The core of feeling lingers because it, too, is malleable. Sustained by half-forgotten still images, events that did not really happen the way anyone involved recalls. Of which photos and video evoke a sense of strangeness. The only thing true left about them are the sentiments attached.

They are all friends, but that friendship has changed. It means something different now. To them, and to Gon.

Gon presses play.

He listens to Killua. Killua’s voice is deeper; Killua’s voice was always deeper; Gon heard it crack when Killua shouted for him and now it cracks for emphasis, for consternation, for anger. It is the same voice but it isn’t.

“Could you call me back? Call me back. Call me _back_.”

Killua suggests. Killua implores. Killua snaps. 

Gon plays the messages again. 

His head is in the dirt and the phone is pressed to his ear. An automated voice tells him with words spoken in disjointed tones that the timeline of these messages is much longer than he expects. He realizes belatedly that it has been a very long time since he has had anything to say to Killua’s pictures and he has long since turned off read receipts to save data.

Killua, the one who walked away, broke his own rule first. 

Gon plays the messages again.

The timestamps tell him that they were all sent past midnight. 

Gon has heard all of these intonations in Killua’s voice before. All of these and so many more. They are the prompt for the rest, the cue cards with a single word permitted during Gon’s correspondence tests; a trickle of terse sentences that wells into a deluge of whole lectures and sighs and lips around lollipops and skin like starlight on unbroken snow that was somehow still warm to the touch. Killua’s voice gives way to tears and his hesitation and his condescension and the lies that he told and plunges all of Gon’s old wounds into salt water.

But out here Gon has learned to stop picking at the scabs of time.

He immerses himself in those words instead of lashing out in hurt, trying to get away. Pores over them. Listens. Hears them, adrift with his eyes closed, afloat without gravity.

Killua would have wanted to come to him. He should have called him.

Mito was no fool for raising him. It needed to be done. His grandmother needed help in her twilight years, even if there were other ways to go about it. Gon is no wiser for severing his attachments; for throwing Killua away. For blustering in anger about his faults, even if they are true, in a self-soothing, self-righteous tirade that drove them apart. It served no other purpose because Gon never gave him the chance to correct them.

Gon’s diatribe in the palace tower was no better or more effective, in the end, than Mito screaming at Ging that he was a bad father; Gon’s cutting words as malicious and calculated and worthless to the ends they desired as Mito suing for custody. All they did was cause the object of their affections to leave. To find others who treated them better.

What if Mito had told Ging that she didn’t want to be left behind? What if she’d asked to come with him?

Ging wouldn’t have sought her out in all her hiding places if he didn’t care.

But that would have been admitting weakness. Admitting she - he couldn’t help himself. That he was a burden. That he wanted something he couldn’t reach on his own. That he was lost at sea and it was his own fault. That he had failed a friend and it was his own fault and he was drowning in that guilt, suffocating, and it hurt so bad he wanted to die.

What if Gon had told all this to Killua?

Like Mito, Gon would rather have all his teeth pulled out with pliers.

[gon please talk to me]

It isn’t someone else. It couldn’t be someone else. Could it? Mito doesn’t have his phone number. She would never say please. Leorio would just tell him to call.

[who’s this]

[who do you think]

It’s Killua.

Killua berates him for losing his phone number. Killua berates him for losing his phone. Gon half-listens, because Killua’s voice really does crack now, horribly, and it’s all he can do to keep from laughing.

Gon tells him about the city instead. He wants to tell him about the trees, about how beautiful it is and how old it is and what these things mean to him, here and now on the edge of the world, but all that comes out is cool squids and lizards and rock pictures that Killua interrupts him to call “mosaics”.

Gon should tell him everything.

Tell him that it makes no sense that Gon would tear down the sky, tear down mountains, tear himself apart until there is nothing left to save a friend, yet would deny Killua that same opportunity out of pride. Tell him that it is unfair that Gon is the only one allowed to lose control, to take risks, to act on his feelings. 

Tell him that he was right.

These words weigh more than every door to the gate of the Zoldyck mansion. No matter how hard he strains Gon cannot move them. They are welded by blood and by history to the flesh of his person. 

Killua blows them open with a whisper. 

“I’m sorry.”

All those pictures eroded by salt on the floor of the ocean exist in two places. 

“I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

Killua is living proof that blood and history don’t always tell. He wrenched himself free on his own. How did Gon fall so far behind?

Gon grits teeth. Squares himself against a weight that is suddenly so, so much lighter. Swallows against the bitter taste of seawater.

“I shouldn’t have pushed you away,” he admits.

The sound that follows is the same burgeoning near-silence of short, stifled, rapid breaths that Gon heard behind him so many times in East Gorteau; the noises of someone who has learned to cry voicelessly. Gon did not call attention to the fact that he could hear the quaver in his speech nor that he could smell the salt and mucous; the same as he did not call attention to the smell of the food Mito brought and the rustle of her skirts when she crept up on them at night and stayed behind a bush to listen.

At first, Gon thinks he’s done something wrong; at length, Killua says, with relief and chagrin, everything that he should have said instead of those pictures of animals and candy: his family hasn’t really let him go. Let them go. Tacitly, he admits - though he does not say - that he has no plan for when his family decides that their adventure is over. He has to be ever on the move, which is no life at all for someone who doesn’t want it. He has burned through every last jenny he ever earned to stay one step ahead of them. And stripped of his family’s wealth, as well as the ability to take dangerous contracts, there is no more coming.

So, Gon returns the favour. He tells Killua that he’s been kicked out, too. That he’s found a new way to travel the world. That he’s seen things and felt things that delighted him as much as the things that he felt and saw when he was eleven.

It feels the same as the second hour he spent around Leorio in the Port City, after a few drinks. As the last few steps of the trail that leads to the old swamp. The seasons have shifted the details - the branches, the leaves, the seedlings, the dens and the small rocks - but the landmarks remain the same. Before he knows it, he has laughed, and Killua has laughed too.

They should have been doing this the whole time. 

Killua has some harebrained scheme to scam the nenless at Heaven’s Arena into paying his rent. Gon has opinions about it; Killua isn’t taking advice.

The suggestion that they meet again is ultimately Killua’s. It was under Killua’s that they had parted.

Gon accepts. Just as he would have if Killua had called him a week ago to suggest it. Or a month. Or if Killua had taken him up on his offer to see Ging, and they had climbed together, with Alluka’s legs wrapped around one of their waists, as Killua had carried her and Komugi both for miles. 

Gon does not and will never know that if he’d gone to Ging alone the first time he had a chance, he would have done so months sooner, without heartbreak.

Where they once agreed to meet their friends again on September 1st, at the end of a summer filled with new experiences - where Gon first went ashore, where he gazed at the stars in the Whale Island sky with another person for the first time, where he learned to touch the force of life itself - he and Killua will reunite in heart of winter, at the start of a new year.

On his way back into town the air is warm and weightless. 

A youth stops him on his stroll to ask Gon if he needs company; Gon tells him not tonight, he doesn’t, and tosses him the jenny he has in his pocket.

The rest Gon spends on supplies for the journey north and, on a whim, a waterproof phone case. He only wants to ask Killua for his photos back the once, after all. It has a sticker with the city’s lizards on it.

This he takes to an internet cafe - he should talk to the rest of his friends, too. Bisky tells him about the time she herself was in southern Saherta gem-hunting. Nouko has passed her exams. Ikalgo thanks him for the update. He and Palm are an item now. Knuckle berates him tearfully for five straight minutes before sending him pictures of his new dogs. Leorio didn’t even notice he’d been missing. He sounds tired; his last day off was the day they last met.

Stick and Spinner have created a whole WhatHapp group called ForestFancier for themselves, Kite, Koala, and the other amateur Hunters, which they let him join. They hope he’ll check on it more often - they’ve missed him.

Gon just might. It no longer hurts to read their lively conversations; he knows he will see them again someday.

The first such lively conversation he is treated to happens when he tells them he has been squid fishing. Stick says this is terrible and destructive; Spinner that this isn’t necessarily so, it depends on the method - jigging has almost no by-catch. Monta protests that industrial-scale jigging has decimated whole stocks; Podungo rebuts that small-scale squid fishing can be sustainable; Lin objects that boutique fishing results in catches that are only accessible to the wealthy; Podungo calls him the name of some man Gon has only heard about from his textbooks who was angry about factories a lot and thanks him for his contribution. Banana posts a link to a video describing a traditional method of squid fishing in Jappon that collects the squid right after they have spawned, at the end of their lifecycles when they would die regardless, so that nothing is wasted.

Kite is not amused: [that’s still a mass of protein removed from the ocean that something else would have eaten] 

That something else must have died a long time ago, Gon thinks. He does not say so. He senses the argument is not about him and hasn’t been from the start.

Gon writes to Mito by hand. The characters look strange; they have warped from painstakingly book-taught to rough, blunt strokes. From large and exuberant to scrawled and jagged. He hasn’t handwritten anything save a signature since he left Whale Island; it looks like the writing on a whiteboard above the day’s catch or the margins of an engine manual by an old sailor. His palms have hard callouses and his fingers are thicker than those of many grown men he passes.

Gon writes to tell her that he will meet her again, whenever she wants to. Anywhere except Whale Island.

Gon explores his surroundings at every port of call between southern Yorbia and northern Padokea. From the largest cities to the most remote island towns. He spends less time in what fascinates the crowds, of what each is proudest, and more in their small shops and quiet alleys. Leaping from arch to arch over forgotten decrepit waterways, feeding stray dogs - first, from a distance. Then from his hands. He strolls the length of small islets; gauges what birds shelter here on their long migrations across the sea even in their absence by the presence of plants grown from the seeds they unwittingly carried. He listens to buskers in street plazas play as solos and duets the music from packed concert halls priced at tens of thousands of jenny.

He sends pictures of these to Killua.

By the time he has reached the shores of Padokea proper the wind is crisply cold. Flurries of snow kick up over the water to frost the foam-tipped waves. 

In the port town here on the east coast the emperor crab fishermen are all of a kind: weathered and unshaved faces, few under twenty and fewer over forty, almost all men. The drab wool cap they all wear is the first thing Gon buys - and recalls that Killua had a cap like this once, though he can’t remember him ever wearing it. Wool stays warm when wet, so it is popular on Whale Island in the winter, too. As are the insulated, dual-layer overalls coated with rubber against pincers, teeth, scales, and rain. All brightly coloured for contrast against dark seas.

In lockers on deck - unlike Whale Island - they keep waterproof suits in the same vivid orange; Gon practices donning his until he can do it in the two minutes required. They are too hot and the fixed gloves too cumbersome to work in, but, they tell him, he could survive six to twelve hours in the water in one, depending on his constitution. A fisherman could fall overboard and stay afloat long enough for his crewmates to find him, back home; here, they warn him, he might not even last long enough to make it back to the surface.

Gon saw traps set for crabs and lobster near the island as a child: tiny toy things pulled up onto a dinghy. The principle is the same, writ large by grown men with the minds to make machines for it. The pots as they call them could trap a tiger and if filled to bursting weigh half a ton or more. They are winched up from depths in the hundreds of fathoms. 

The oldest men here say that once upon a time they did burst; that within three seasons only scraps were left to climb back from the brink in the worst waters. That fishermen in the north of Azia fared even worse and they are all but extinct there now. Sometimes, they will see Azian ships try their luck in creeping out of international waters - sometimes, the Padokean navy will arrive to escort them elsewhere. 

Gon’s own vessel is sized somewhere between the four-crew gillnetter that kept to the coastal rivers and the ship that sailed the open ocean and processed its catch within. Too small and it would not withstand the weather; too large and it could not navigate the narrow, rocky passages. There are seven of them, of a minimum crew of five, and Gon is the only one on his first season - he is told they only ever take one new boy. It remains to be seen whether or not he will be useful.

Their first night out the wind screams like a dying animal. The ocean spray is so frigid as to smart the few square inches of skin exposed to the elements. The sea heaves and in the troughs between the waves they fall so low that water rises past the windows. 

Gon keeps the deck tidy. The lines stowed. The coffee fresh. The lookout sharp and the conversation lively. Killua did the talking when they were together; Gon prefers to listen to strangers. But he has a voice when he means to share it, and he has seen half the world. The other half is yet to come. Padokean natives have never seen a desert and can hardly imagine it; can’t imagine the way it rustles nor the way a jungle hums and breathes.

In the calm that follows the pots go down; where the lights of the silverling runs were a cramped cluster of stars at the heart of a galaxy, they are flung further distant from the next vessel than the lonesome bright sparks between two of them. 

Emperor crab are the size of foxbear cubs and the spiny crowns around their eyestalks delight him. They snap and scuttle atop one another with long pointed legs like spiders though they do not walk so deliberately as spiders do. There are tanks for them aboard - they are sold to markets live where the most upscale restaurants will serve them right from an aquarium. Those of the wrong kind or too small are tossed back. 

Gon wonders if, from two thousand feet up, they will ever make it back to the bottom. Crabs have no fins; he imagines them falling endlessly, for hours, end over end.

So they proceed, laying one string of pots after another. Hauling them back in. Moving and hoping. Chasing sparse gossip as to where the best finds have been. They plan their routes to circle back to port to waste the least time; the seasons grow ever shorter. Ice creeps onto everything and must be hacked back down; Gon minds this very little and picks it up as quickly as he has the rest.

_Find out what you can do as you are now._

Every pot they raise here is worth more than a fisherman from Whale Island would make in a year; a season’s worth is more than they might see in a lifetime. After the owner, the captain, and the first mate take their cuts, there is still enough left to live on comfortably. It’s not Hunter money, nor even doctor money, but it is enough to save and even buy a house in a city, someday. It would fund himself, Killua, and Alluka, for a year or more if Gon was watching the purse strings.

That’s something he can still do, as he is now: use his head. Killua might be cleverer, but he is easily thrown off-balance, if something throws a wrench into his careful plans - though, if Gon is to be fair, he himself has been that wrench as often as he hasn’t. What if another nen user has the same idea Killua does? What if they sent one of the family servants - one Killua liked? Would he really fight them to death? 

Killua would tell him he would decide in the moment, when it comes. But what if that is too late?

Their plans worked better together.

And what of Alluka? Would she agree with his decision? Has Killua even asked her? That is something Gon can do, as he is now - talk to her, and frankly. About the powers she has. About what she wants out of life: if her wanderlust is as strong as his own, she won’t be satisfied with guided tours of theme parks and shopping malls, kept close by her brother’s side. Killua has said he’s found his purpose in life, but he has never once mentioned finding hers.

Gon can curb Killua’s tongue when it catches Alluka as collateral; Killua will protest that he means old women, as if his sister will somehow never age; that he means unfeminine women, as if his disregard of feminine women as so delicate as to be worthless was a compliment; if he protests that his sister alone is an exception because she is not like other girls, Gon will hit him. He will definitely hit him if he calls her his brother on the phone again.

It won’t do much, without nen. But perhaps that will change, too. At Heaven’s Arena Wing and Zushi will be there. Wing could tell him if his cause is truly lost; and if nen is the source of life, and Gon is still alive, how can it be? Wing can teach him how to regain it, the right way this time. Didn’t Wing say that it would have been better if they’d done it the right way? 

Perhaps, in time, Gon will be even stronger for it. And if he isn’t, he still has worth. There is so much else he can do. 

Gon doesn’t know why this didn’t occur to him sooner. While he was on Whale Island. To seek out answers. To continue following his dreams. To leave and meet his friends again. The walls of his old bedroom had closed around him like a thick blanket of fog he escaped through sleep; every failed problem set an impossible setback and every step on the floorboards or clatter from the kitchen a threat. Wandering old paths in circles, going nowhere. Seeing no one.

The brisk sea breeze has blown that haze away and Gon can once again see the future.

This is neither the far reaches of the open ocean nor the vast and unpopulated desert of Yorbia known only for Meteor City, hundreds of miles inland. From time to time he has a signal and when he does he checks his phone. Chats idly with Knuckle. Listens to Bisky. Responds to Killua’s pictures in full sentences. Scrolls through reams of text on ForestFanciers; topics range from rising sea levels in Mitene to how to make a vegan quiche. Stick and Monta have decided to stop wearing soled shoes - this is met with a mixture of admiration and friendly jibing.

Spinner posts an article about the reintroduction of the floppy furred seal to Kukan’yu. It is hoped that they will revive the great kelp forests that once flourished there by preying on the spiny wastrels that consume their shoots en masse. So that there will be stocks other than silverlings again.

The problem is that the seals have realized that far easier prey are the silverlings stuck wriggling in gillnets. The fishermen have taken to shooting them on sight, just as they did in the old days. It is illegal to do so, but out on the water, who would tell? You would know exactly who was within hearing of a gunshot, and they would have their lines cut if not their diesel engine filled with gasoline at the next port if they dared.

Gon wants to ask if they eat the seals, but doesn’t. Lin’s parents paid for him to attend the most prestigious private university in Kakin Port City; Kite could buy and sell everything these people owned with a single contract. 

Kite does say that fishing is more like hunting than husbandry; all the animals they take are wild.

On windless days the surface of the water is a deep grey mirror of the sky. Dark, where it reflects nothing - a bowl of hematite, rather than mercury. Seagulls swirl indolently in the calm; when gusts buffet them they careen without grace and plop back down into the ocean. Closer to the shore there are sometimes giant eagles, high and broad and watchful. Their cries are more similar to the gulls than Gon thought they would be.

Stillness carries with it its own dangers: wind whips away the mist that rises each morning to cloud their path, to cloak jagged seaworn rocks, lost logs, and blocks of ice roamed down from afar. The engine runs slowly on these days, and its sound is swallowed by water in all directions.

When the wind blows hard they are at its mercy, and Gon soon learns to compensate for its list. They lack the power to plow over the whitecaps when the sea well and truly erupts and must go where they are pushed. To rise and glide and crash, always with the bow pointed forward. Skiers over even black hills as far as the eye can see in every direction while the sky roils above them. 

The storm booms with such fury that at first Gon does not recognize what hears. His back is turned; the brightening of the sky he mistakes for another ship, or a crack of moonlight. 

Upon the second flash he bounds the ladder out of the hold in a leap, disbelieving.

The first mate laughs and calls out after him - these happen here, sometimes.

But Gon has never seen one. Not like this - thunderstorms come to Whale Island in the summer. To break the oppressive heat that lays heavily on the land and to fill the swamps. Not in the midst of falling snow; the bolts are just as white, and they dance along the waves like daylight. Like strips of film scored through to reveal the illuminated backing. Beams down into the dark to reveal the grandeur of all this chaos.

Gon climbs on top of the cabin to take a video of it all for Killua.

The first mate calls out again: they are listing, and they’ll need to make for port sooner than later to stay out of the lightning. Gon needs to check the ballast tank. The holding tanks, too. Check for ice. 

Gon stuffs his phone back into his pocket. Acknowledges his instructions with a whoop, and swings back down over--

The water hurts when he hits it. The surprise of it, the blunt force of surface tension and all of his weight - all of that is familiar. He knows he’s fallen. What he isn’t prepared for is the pain. The cold that burns like fire burns and makes his muscles seize and cramp with agony.

Gon has been in pain before, and very badly. He resists the urge to curl or panic or choke, fights it as hard as he can muster to push himself to the surface.

He gasps air; his limbs are frenetic with jerks and his heart’s thuds so uneven and frantic that they make his throat ache and rattle his ribcage. He sees nothing and hears nothing else.

He shuts his eyes. Breathes as if he was preparing for a long dive. As if he was practicing his _ten_. Even. Deep. Even. Deep. Full. Counted.

When Gon opens his eyes again he sees his ship; he has drifted a full fifty yards from it already. It has listed so hard that it has keeled on its side. It is taking on water and looks to capsize. Gon does not know why and never will. Faint figures, backlit by the storm, scramble on deck. Gon makes for them. They have seconds before it rolls over.

Gon loses and regains sight of the vessel with every wave. By the time he reaches it the hull is up and the cabin down. There are only three others in the water; at this, Gon dives without thought. 

The deck pushes down on him from above. Fully submerged, all doors open for him, and he travels familiar passages half-blind and in reverse. Behind one he finds one of the crew lifeless with a head wound anyone one would be unlikely to survive, the blood in the cabin’s water the colour of squid ink. Behind another a deckhand who put on his immersion suit too soon, or went back for the other after he had done so, and could not fight its buoyancy to escape. Neither can Gon, when he tries to free him.

Gon surfaces empty-handed. Now there are two others in the water. One is the first mate: Gon shouts to him, and he shouts back, through chattering teeth. The other that was with them was clinging to debris and was swept away. No one has seen the captain. They tried to get the life raft out first but they couldn’t; it is uninflated and might be torn. They don’t know where it is now.

Gon tells them to wait. Steels himself, and breathes. Goes under again, though his skin screams for him not to do it.

He feels for the suit locker. He finds controls; latches; chain; anything else. His extremities are badly numb. He searches an eternity of minutes and when at last he finds it, it is opened. Two remain - they are pinned to the up-turned bottom, and even uninflated must be yanked and scraped along the deck with all his might.

When Gon surfaces again, he is alone.

Gon cries out. Shouts. Thunder echoes back at him. The waves give him no direction, save the push and pull of the rapidly diminishing hull. 

Gon crawls up onto it as best he can. Dumps the water from one of the suits and lays it out. His limbs have stiffened just as any other frigid thing made of water; the motions he makes are abstract interpretations of the ones he means to - blunt, rough impressions that give the general meaning. There is no fineness, no precision; he must open straps and zippers with his teeth. He encases himself in it as best he can as the air inside the overturned vessel is breached, forced out, homeward, and gravity proves as unyielding submerged as it does aloft.

The stern goes under followed by a final ripple and Gon and other small, bobbing bright things are all that remain.

Gon is an experienced enough swimmer to keep himself afloat with the inflation of his lungs and the most minimal of movements; he does not have to struggle overmuch even against the weight of clothing. Now that the immersion suit has lifted even that for him, he can relax - for moments, at least.

Until he starts to shiver. Gradually, at first. A shaking he can control. This is good, isn’t it? Where his limbs were numb and motionless the pain has returned. A raw ache that turns into a stinging all over his skin. 

It isn’t warm, inside the suit. It was soaked through, and Gon could not strip off all of his wet gear - did not remove the wool. It is simply a barrier that delineates this cold water and his cold body from the cold ocean. The wetness that sloshes around inside feels awful. There is nowhere he can fold himself inside that it will not touch him. He is water, too, isn’t he? Warm water? Shouldn’t it yield to his temperature, or at least come closer to his in their compromise? Wildly, feverishly, he sees flashes of the pages of his textbooks for the mixing of two fluids. No, those were Nouko’s. High school level. Impossible. Killua could explain it to him.

Every fraction of a degree in that compromise matters so much more to him than it does to the ocean.

The shaking crescendos into violent spasms. His teeth chatter against all efforts to still them; their snapping catches his tongue unwittingly and bites it so hard it bleeds. He can see nothing for all the spray sheeting around his face, hear nothing for all the waves sloshing around his hood, think nothing for all the ancient parts of his brain shutting him out for his own survival. Kicking and yanking on the cord of his nerves to the engine of his body to sputter it back to life after a night in the snow where it has laid too long fallow.

Gradually this, too, fades into softer spasms. Gon cannot tell if he has won or lost, only that it does not hurt so much anymore. He can once again feel the sea beneath him lift and toss him down again like a toy in the bathtub of a playful child. He can see the flickering sky slashed by brightness and can taste the salt of all the water he has swallowed, diluted by the mucous that has drenched his face and throat.

How long it has been he cannot discern: he looks for his crewmates, signs of debris, signs of rock or surf or other ships until there is light on the horizon and the sea slowly levels into a world of greyness and Gon sees that there is nothing else around him, not even the gulls.

Gon is the only object for miles. Layer upon layer of thick clouds permit no indication of direction.

In the lull he has ample time to take stock of his predicament. 

What is he doing here? Why is he here, and not home warm in his bed? With freshly sun-dried sheets beneath him, the scent of steamed clams wafting up the stairs? Or curled up with Kon by the pond’s shore, tucked affectionately against his fur? 

Was he really so afraid of middle school math problems that _this_ was a preferable alternative? Of Mito’s scorn-laced rebukes? Of walking in circles? It is laughable - he is too breathless with anger at himself to laugh.

Why isn’t he with Kite and the others? They wanted him to stay. They offered to let him stay. The group chat flooded with excited welcomes, smiling images, when he returned. Didn’t he enjoy helping animals? Finding and protecting their homes? Bedding down in the woods or on the plains or in the mountains with laughter and like-minded friends?

Why didn’t he stay in Port City? Bisky would have trained him - tried to - if he’d but asked. Leorio had mentioned meaningfully that he would be happy to have someone tend his errands for long double-shifts; that his apartment was larger than he needed. Kakin’s cities have begun to boom with investments under its new King. Couldn’t he have made something of himself there?

Why didn’t he ask to go with Killua? At the base of the World Tree, instead of the other way around.

Adrift in silence, the sea has no answer for him. Only that he can feel the cold again, now that the pain has faded. He is tired; the ferocity of his movements in the past night’s desperation have left him spent.

Alone with his misery and soothed by that subtle and primal rocking, he is kinder to himself. Has nothing but the clouds to see, and to remember.

Remember the vivid dreams that he would awaken from soaked with sweat and sometimes urine of a naked man chained in front of him sobbing for his help and Kite’s sharp admonishment not to look away. Of the image in the corner of his vision of his crushed skull and gurgling and brain matter and sometimes Gon is the one crushing it, with such fury he does not recognize himself and would hate that person he is to the core of his being if he met him now. Remember that he would creep to the bathroom at night to vomit and clean it as best he could and Mito would snap at him if he missed anything. Snap at him for those days when subtler dreams left him so listless with a nameless heaviness that he could not concentrate let alone read. Any words or concepts he was taught slipped through his mind like the current of a stream through his fingers.

He remembers how helplessness, nenlessness, around the amateur Hunters brought all of this back; back and sickly stained with fear. How impossible it was to speak with Kite without remembering: not that he had failed and been forgiven, but what he had become for his failure.

Something Bisky had looked straight through him to see in all its hideousness in the one faltering attempt he’d made and then brushed off to tell her about the Extermination. Something he did not want to bring around someone as kind, as well-intentioned as Leorio. Someone who would never and could never fall to that ugly place and Gon could not bear his judgement if he saw it.

Killua had seen it. Killua saw all of it. And judged him, and found him wanting.

It is so difficult to remember pain well after it has passed. At times it feels as if it never happened. Could never happen again. If the memory is not recent, it is forgotten unless it cuts so deep it scars the mind. 

Gon cannot feel pain anymore. His body is numb, even though he can move it. His vision has lost its sharpness; he blinks rapidly and this does not clear it. Like a late night at his books or over video games with Killua, he is too tired to focus. Only sleep will clear it. 

Sleep would clear it. If Gon slept a while he could get his energy back. It isn’t so cold now. Then he could think of what to do. Find a solution.

What solution? There is nothing and no one.

Gon shakes his head violently. Slaps his own face with water. No. No. Do _not_ sleep. Stay alert. There could be other boats. An airship. A rock for birds that could provide some shelter.

There are no airship lanes here. The northern coast of Azia is populated by scattered tribes of reindeer herders. No one from wealthy Padokea goes there, save seasonal tourist excursions. There are no shipping lanes here, either - the seas are too rough and too littered with dangers. And if he saw a distant rock, could he even swim to it? As he is now?

If Gon had nen, he could have. Could have made the water around him as warm as a bath with his aura - could have swum for days as the speed of a dolphin. Could have blasted the boat upright again, as if it was nothing. He can’t now because this is the choice he made.

For nothing. Kite was alive the whole time. Or was he? Is that Kite? Or is it a Chimera Ant with a few of his memories? Was Kite dead the whole time, and Pitou never a liar? Would any of them have been able to defeat her, if Gon hadn’t? Is Killua alive, and Alluka free, because of the price Gon paid?

Or was it worthless?

The sea has no answers for him. It has no pity and no concern. It is and has always been before there was anything. No - it has greater concerns. Gon is not alone; not the sole object that juts inelegantly between two level planes. There are thousands of others here with him, millions of others, beneath his feet. 

They await him with starving mouths upturned amidst the ruins he has made of their civilization.

Gon wishes he’d thought to unlatch the holding tanks in his frenzy to find an immersion suit. He hopes it came unlatched in all the tumult; that it too breaks open when the ship breaks apart. The crabs will go free and go home and slowly their violent dreams will ease and they will live whatever time is left to them.

Sporadic breaks of muted sunlight make glittering patterns along the surface. The sparks sear Gon’s eyes, but he dare not shut them. They are beautiful in their own way, aren’t they? He could take a picture for Killu--

He has his phone. Gon has his phone; there is chill damp plastic and glass against his thigh.

The surge of sudden anticipation stutters his slowing heartbeats. Doused by the reality that he might not have a signal. That to pull it out and use it he would have to open the seal on the immersion suit. That more water would rush in if he did, and hasten his fate.

And what would he say if he did? Who would he call? If Killua has made it to Heaven’s Arena, he would be the closest; Gon’s other friends might as well be worlds away. Does he know a Hunter with an Ability who could help him? Could Alluka simply wish it all away?

Or is all he’ll cause with their last conversation panic and suffering?

Has he done enough for any of his friends, in these past years, to warrant burdening them with that?

Would the Padokean Coast Guard reach him in time if he called them? Gon knows vaguely where he is; where he was last night, at least. Had the captain managed to make a distress call before they went down? If he had, why aren’t they here already? They will have missed their last check-in with the port authority hours ago.

Airships travel slowly. Searches across the open sea can take days.

He could leave a message. Record himself. They might find him eventually. He might wash ashore. He could say all the things he hasn’t yet. He could talk for hours, to each and every one of them, even Mito, without hearing their responses. 

That seems a coward’s way of facing them. But if he called them now, what would he _say_?

Live. _Live_. Don’t _give up_. Giving up is what has led him here. 

Yet there is less fear for him in dying than in hearing their anguish. He has made this mistake, he must deal with it, he can’t unload it onto others.

Those chains welded to his flesh are dragging him under.

The cracks of blue and sunrimmed white and the scent of salt muddle into Killua’s soft swallow of hurt at Gon’s growled condemnation. Why didn’t Killua tell him what he was so afraid of? What he truly thought about the direction they were headed? All Gon has are phantom reasons of his own invention. Gon knows why he didn’t tell Killua about his own reasons, so at loathe was he of himself. 

There is so much left unspoken between them that its depths are unknowable. They burgeon like a living thing in stillness; they rage with the force to overwhelm all they encompass in conflict. And if Gon drowns in it, he will sink forever.


End file.
